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\ LIBRAR^OF CONGRESS, j 






^UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 




£NG/.{/IVJ-:iJ B/J. MUiTMIN^ 




^^^2^^ 



-?>^ 







THE LIFE 



OF 



THOMAS JEFFERSON FISHER, 



THE CELEBRATED 



PULPIT ORATOR AND EVANGELIST 



WITH A 



MASONIC ADDRESS, 



AND A FEAGMENT OF 



A SERMON. 



By JOHN H. SPENCER. 




LOUISVILLE, KY: 

JOHN P. MORTON & CO. 

1 8GG. 

y 






Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 18G6, 
By J. H. SPENCER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
District of Kentucky. 

Stereotyped by John P. Morton & Co. 



PREFACE. 



After a period of ten years, during which I have 
devoted my time exclusively to preaching the Gospel, 
I have paused to give less than one month's time to 
the writing of a brief memoir of a fallen fellow- 
laborer. 

Without attempting any style, I have aimed simply 
to give as correct a portraiture of the celebrated pul- 
pit orator, Thomas Jefferson Fisher, as the limited 
space I have allowed myself would admit of. 

The best apology I can offer the reader for the 
many imperfections in the composition of this little 
volume is, that my life thus far has been too actively 
devoted to what I have regarded the much more im- 
portant work of preaching ^' Jesus and the Resurrec- 
tion," to allow me time for the study of grammatical 
technicalities. I have attempted to write so as to be 
understood, and especially to avoid wearying the reader 
with an affected dignity of style. 

I knew little of Mr. Fisher in the private walks 
of life, and hence have written principally of his 
public career as a popular and successful preacher, 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

an earnest, active laborer, and a strangely gifted 
orator. To write the truth, though it should expose 
the errors as well as present the virtues of a departed 
brother, has been my constant aim. Hoping that his 
virtues may be imitated and his errors avoided, I pre- 
sent the result of my effort to the public, with a sincere 
desire that it may give pleasure and be of some profit 
to the reader. 

The Author. 

Lacona, Ey., April, 1866. 



INDEX. 



CHAPTER I. 

Great men come up from poverty — Mr. Fisher's birth — Ancestry 
— Pennsylvania Dutch — John Boleyn Fisher — Old pioneer — 
Advantages of poverty — Aspiration for learning — At school 
under difficulties — Learns a trade — Professes religion — Joins 
the Presbyterians — Studies the Scriptures — Familiarity with 
the Scriptures — Self-reliance — Thinks for himself — Trouble 
about baptism 9-20 

CHAPTER II. 

Trouble about baptism — Carson, Judson, and others — Mr. Fisher 
joins the Baptists — Three bank-bills — Wm. B. Smith 21-24 

CHAPTER III. 

A happy young man — A new difficulty — Impressions to preach — 
Difficulties in the way — Reflections on a call to the ministry — 
Arguments in favor of a special call to the ministry — Testi- 
mony of experience — A boy called — Trials of the ministry — 
Advantages they enjoy 25-32 

CHAPTER IV. 

Going in search of an education — Leaving home — Reflections on 
childhood home — In school at Middletown — Goes to Pittsburg — 
Cheap living — Licensed to preach — Takes small-pox — Returns 

home — Is ordained to preach 33-37 

(5) 



INDEX. 



CHAPTER V. 



Rise of religious enterprises — Condition of the country in re- 
gard to education — A backwoods school — Preachers of the 
times — Progress of education 38-44 

CHAPTER VI. 

Religious revivals — Rise of protracted meetings — Evils growing 
out of them — Importance of correct teachings — How to con- 
duct protracted meetings 45-54 

CHAPTER VII. 

Rise of Campbellism — Its violence — Its sectarianism — Harmony 
of its doctrines — Separation from the Baptists 55-64 

CHAPTER VIII. 

God provides — Antagonistic factions — Hyper-Calvinists — Fuller- 
ites — The reformation — Separation — Advancement of Pedoism 
— Men for the times 65-69 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Avorld's geniuses — Genius of Mr. Fisher — Description of his 
person — Physical strength — Power of endurance — His im- 
mense labor — Colloquial powers — Use of social powers — Great 
industry — Early poverty — Secular employment — His passions 
— Fearlessness — Attacked by an infidel club — A pistol pointed 
at him — Reflection on moral courage 70-79 

CHAPTER X. 

Nothing new — Mr. Fisher's imagination — Extract from a sermon 
— Reflections on imagination — Dream of heaven — Mr. Fisher's 
language — Extravagant expressions — Rapid development — 
Danger of genius — Religion a safeguard 80-88 

CHAPTER XI. 

Not good to be alone — Need of a wife's influence — Man was 
made to love — Mr, Fisher's marriage 89-93 



INDEX. 7 

CHAPTER XII. 

Mr. Fisher a revivalist — In a protracted meeting — A man of 
much prayer — Prays for an Irishman — Eloquence in prayer 
— Faith in prayer — Ben Hodges — Making the congregation 
work — Our strange brother — Tact in meeting difficulties — 
Rolling out a whisky-barrel — Stops a fishing party — A keen 
retort — Contest with the devil — A meeting at Burksville — 
Deacon Jones — An infidel's dream — Alford King — An earnest 
laborer 94-115 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Mr. Fisher's natural gift — Education — Repugnance to writing — 
Number of his sermons — Preparation for the pulpit — Prepara- 
tion of his sermons — Of himself — Of his congregation. 116-121 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Music — Poetry — Painting — Song — Oratory — Mr. Fisher's ora- 
tory — Appearance in the pulpit — Gestures — Two revolvers — 
His voice — Enunciation — Not an ornamental speaker — Illus- 
trations — Manner of delivery — Control of his audience — Life 
pictures — Death-bed — Lost soul — Pictures of heaven... 122-139 

CHAPTER XV. 
Genius not appreciated — Description of a sermon 140-153 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Debate with Dr. Pinkerton — Two debates with Clark — Anecdote 
of a hunter — Clark joins the Baptists — Debate with Franklin 
— Mr. Fisher as a debater 154-158 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Mr. Fisher's private life — Testimony of Mr. Thurman — Of Mr. 
Miller — Mr. Fisher at home — Letter to his baby — To his little 
dauffhter — To his wife — His last labors 159-167 



O INDEX. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Mr. Fisher leaves home the last time — Reflections on our igno- 
rance of the future — Preaches his last sermon — Receives his 
death-wound — Pity for the assassin — His death — Letter of con- 
dolence 168-174 

Fragment of a Funeral Sermon 175-185 

Masonic Address 186-202 

Eulogy on the Life and Character of Jackson 203-208 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



*#* 



CHAPTEH I. 



A LARGE majority of the truly great men of modern 
times have risen up from the humbler walks of life. 
This is measurably true of all countries. The peas- 
antry of Europe has presented to the admiration of 
the civilized world many of its greatest and most use- 
ful men. Martin Luther s^ng little ballads at street 
corners and from door to door for his daily bread; 
William Shakespeare was a child of poverty and want ; 
John Bunyan wandered about the streets clad in rags ; 
John Milton sold the copyright of "Paradise Lost" 
for a trifling pittance to supply his immediate want; 
Sidney Smith and John Mason Good struggled with 
the pinchings of poverty; and Charles Dickens has 
risen from penniless orphanage to a world-wide fame. 
But the peculiar structure of the political and social 
institutions of our own country has left human genius 
free and untrammeled to develop its own resources. 
Individual responsibility rests alike on every citizen ; 
and every boy is early taught that the pathway to 

(9) 



10 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

fame and usefulness lies unobstructed before him. 
The natural fire of genius is undamped by the gall- 
ing restraints of privileged castes; and the child of 
poverty, inured to toil and hardships from his rude 
cradle, and early taught the lesson of self-reliance, 
inspired by a natural thirst for knowledge and distinc- 
tion, no sooner learns that the pathway to eminence 
is open before him than his early developed energies 
more than make amends for his want of facilities. 
His strong will and power of endurance brook every 
obstacle, and he soon outstrips the fortune-enfeebled 
rival. Thus have arisen from the poorer classes in 
the "New World" nine tenths of its greatest and 
most useful men. From their "log cabins in the wil- 
derness " have gone forth the most of our able states- 
men, distinguished generals, eminent jurists, pros- 
perous merchants, learned theologians, and brilliant 
orators, and the brightest gems in the nation's 
diadem of literary fame have been gathered, by the 
peasants of the land, from the virgin soil of the 
forest-shaded vales and mountains. 

Thomas Jefferson Fisher, like Henry Clay, Henry 
B. Bascom, Joseph B. Underwood, William Vaughan, 
and many other leading spirits of the age, was born 
of poor parents, and by his own unflagging energy 
and tireless industry carved his way up, from poverty 
and obscurity, to the highest pinnacle of oratorical 
fame. 

His father, John Boleyn Fisher, who is still living, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 11 

and is more than one hundred years of age, is a 
native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is of Ger- 
man ancestry, and belongs to that useful class of 
citizens known, in the western states, by the familiar 
appellation of ^'Pennsylvania Dutch." This class of 
citizens, most of whom were educated under the influ- 
ence of that peculiar system of religious teaching, so 
strict in its consecration to truth, honesty, sobriety, 
morality, industry, and philanthropy, known as Quak- 
erism, has formed an important element in our western 
society. In the development of our agricultural and 
manufacturing resources, we are much indebted to the 
industry, ingenuity, and economy of the " Pennsylvania 
Dutch." Their example of sobriety and frugality — so 
far as imitated — has been a healthy check on the too 
prominent tendency, in the leading element of our 
society, to licentious prodigality and voluptuous dis- 
sipation. 

John Boleyn Fisher came to Kentucky while a 
young man, and plunged into the deep, wide forests 
of the " dark and bloody ground," to battle with the 
difficulties of frontier life for his fortune. The Indian 
hunter was still lingering around the border settle- 
ments, loth to leave his ancient hunting-ground, and 
the howling of the wolf and the shrill scream of the 
ferocious and blood-thirsty panther still floated away, 
on the night winds, over the forest-clad hills and val- 
leys, dotted here and there by a small clearing, with 
a hunter's cabin built upon it. He married Miss Mary 



12 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

Leftridge, a native of Virginia — that old mother of 
states and heroes, whose fair daughters have been the 
mothers of so many good and great men. His has 
been a long and eventful life. He was born about 
the year 1765, ten years before the commencement of 
the revolutionary war. There were then about two 
millions of inhabitants in the American colonies. He 
is ten years older than this great nation. He has 
been cotemporary with every American citizen that 
has lived. He has survived several hundreds of mill- 
ions of his fellow-citizens. He has seen a vast wil- 
derness changed into fruitful fields, and dotted over 
with a multitude of great cities and thriving towns. 
He has seen two millions of hunters, lately the serfs 
and peasants of every country in Europe, poor and 
illiterate, expand into forty millions of the most en- 
lightened people, en masse, that the world has ever 
known, and become the greatest agricultural nation 
on the globe. He has passed through two bloody 
wars with the ^^ mother country;" has seen innumer- 
able hordes of savages fade away into a few feeble 
and scattered tribes; and has been permitted to wit- 
ness the return of peace after a four years' civil war, 
in which more soldiers have been engaged than there 
were white inhabitants on the continent when he was 
born. He has seen a hundred years, fraught with 
mighty events, glide away into the eternal past, and 
now waits, like the last trembling autumn leaf, to 
be swept away into " the bourne from whence no one 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 13 

returns." We can not forbear recording an humble 
petition to a God of mercy, that he may be admitted 
into that fairer world, where war, and strife, and toil, 
and suffering are unknown, and where age, and decrep- 
itude, and death never come. 

Thomas J. Fisher was the fourth of thirteen chil- 
dren born to his parents, of whom there were eight 
sons and five daughters. He was born in Mt. Ster- 
ling, Montgomery County, Kentucky, on the ninth day 
of April, A. D. 1812. In early childhood, he evinced 
unusual sprightliness, which caused many predictions, 
from those who knew him, to the effect that "he 
would be a great man some day." He soon exhibited 
a great thirst for learning ; but his parents were very 
poor, and having a large family to support by the 
labor of themselves and that of their children who 
were able to work, they could neither spare his time 
from labor nor afford money to send him to school. 
He was therefore compelled to remain at home, en- 
gaged at such labor as would contribute to the support 
of the family. Similar circumstances have appeared, 
to the minds of many young and honest aspirants 
for distinction, a sad misfortune; while parents have 
grieved much that their promising boys must be sub- 
jected to hard labor, instead of being permitted to 
attend school. And yet this seeming misfortune of 
poverty has laid the foundation of more true greatness 
and usefulness than all the advantages of wealth and 
social position. No man can become truly great and 

2 



14 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

eminently useful to his race without great self-sacri- 
fice, and much power of endurance. These qualities 
are so difficult to obtain, otherwise than through early 
privations, that comparatively few persons raised in the 
higher circles of life ever attain them. The founda- 
tion of Mr. Fisher's great usefulness was doubtless laid 
in the poverty of his parents. Active labor in the 
open air, and the simple, wholesome food that nour- 
ished the children of the poor in the new country 
where he grew up, gave him a strong, well-developed 
physical constitution, without which he could not have 
endured the vast amount of labor he performed during 
the thirty-four years he was engaged in the Christian 
ministry. His manner of speaking, however easy and 
graceful it appeared to his audience, required an 
amount of physical strength and endurance that few 
orators, in any age, have possessed. But active labor 
not only gives physical strength, but that close appli- 
cation to manual labor which necessity enjoins upon 
the poor, who would live respectably and honestly; 
prevents the youth of such families from falling into 
those habits of idle dissipation to which boys, and 
especially those of the ardent and enthusiastic tem- 
perament of Mr. Fisher, are so liable, and which have 
destroyed many of the brightest intellects of every 
age of the human race; and, finally, active, prudent 
industry, during childhood and youth, fixes those hab- 
its of temperance, frugality, economy, and persever- 
ance so necessary to success in this life. The neces- 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISUER. 15 

sity of constant labor did not damp the ardor of our 
young aspirant in the laudable pursuit of knowledge. 
The short intervals between his hours for work were 
used, first, in learning how to read, and afterward in 
snatching ideas from such books as he could obtain, 
and then pondering over them while his hands were at 
work. His stock of knowledge increased more rapidly 
than that of many, at the same age, who were spend- 
ing their time at school. Often, as he returned from 
his day's labor, he would bring an armful of dry sticks 
or bark with which to supply himself, in the absence 
of a candle, with a light to read by. While yet a 
boy, his father permitted him to labor for money, with 
which to pay for his attendance at a school, which in 
that day certainly did not merit the appellation of a 
first-class institution of learning. However, after la- 
boring very hard, at extremely low wages, he procured 
money enough to admit him to the privileges of the 
school, and he entered the halls of learning. As may 
be supposed, a privilege so dearly bought was highly 
appreciated. Our student gave himself to study in 
earnest, and made rapid progress in acquiring the 
elements of an education. But his money was soon 
exhausted, and he was compelled to return to daily 
labor. About this time his father advised him "to 
learn a trade " as a means of support. This he con- 
sented to do, and entered upon his new occupation 
with that zeal and activity so characteristic of his 
whole life. Trained to active industry from early 



16 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

childhood, and having a strong arm and an equally 
strong will, he could not fail of success. At his trade 
he labored faithfully for a support, and during his 
hours of leisure he studied earnestly, because it was 
a pleasure. He had not worked long at his trade be- 
fore he became interested on the subject of the salva- 
tion of his soul — perhaps in the fifteenth year of his 
age. It was unusual, at that day, for a youth of his 
age to seek religion ; but, being naturally of a religious 
turn of mind, and having his intellectual powers early 
developed, the great necessity of being delivered from 
the power of sin weighed heavily upon his young 
heart. He sought and obtained relief for his sin- 
burdened soul in the merits of a crucified Redeemer. 
0, precious fountain, in which so many millions of 
our race have been cleansed from the pollution of sin, 
and relieved from the remorse of a guilty conscience ; 
and yet its healing waters, unwasting as the mighty 
ocean, offer relief to all who will come. 

Mr. Fisher professed religion in 1828. He was 
only sixteen years of age, and had, of course, given 
but little attention to the differences among denomina- 
tional creeds. He immediately joined the Presbyterian 
Church, at Paris, Kentucky. In his new relationship 
to the Lord Jesus Christ and his spiritual people, he 
discovered new duties and new aspirations. "Lord, 
what wilt thou have me to do?" was the anxious 
inquiry of Saul of Tarsus. It has been the earnest 
inquiry of every true convert to the Christian religion 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 17 

from that day to this. Mr. Fisher was not an excep- 
tion to this general rule. He could only learn the will 
of his espoused Lord by prayerfully searching the 
Scriptures. To this pleasing duty he applied himself 
with great earnestness. His diligence and success in 
studying the Scriptures of Truth may be estimated 
from a little incident that occurred a few years after- 
ward. A short time after he began to preach the 
gospel, his great readiness in quoting the Sacred 
Scriptures induced an old sister to inquire of him in 
regard to his acquaintance with the Bible. He replied : 
" I know all the New Testament by heart, except a few 
chapters, and, if I live a few months longer, I w^ill 
know it all by heart." It has been observed of him 
that he seldom opened the Bible at family worship, but 
would repeat a whole chapter or psalm with as much 
ease and facility as if the Bible were lying open before 
him. Would that all ministers of the gospel were as 
familiar with their text-book ! 

We have seen that Mr. Fisher had been thrown on 
his own resources very early in life : first, in providing 
the means for attending school, and then in entering 
on the labor of a tradesman upon his own responsi- 
bility. This had early taught him the important lesson 
of self-reliance. This should be taught to every boy 
who is expected to succeed in the great battle of life, 
so far as is consistent with a strict maintenance of 
parental authority. It is pitiable to see so many 
young men, with good natural intellects, depending on 



18 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

their parents, even after they have families of their 
own. It is certainly one of the strongest indications 
of social decay that could be evinced to a thinking 
people, and ought to awaken us to the necessity of 
training our sons, to industry, economy, and self- 
reliance from childhood up. 

When Mr. Fisher commenced studying the Bible, he 
relied on his own judgment, drew his own deductions, 
and formed his own opinions. This is essential to the 
dignity of individuality and personal responsibility. 
This course of manly independence, however, soon 
brought Mr. Fisher into trouble, at least for the 
present. Only a few months had elapsed, when he 
became convinced that he had not been Scripturally 
baptized. He felt that he had failed to obey a positive 
command of that Savior who had redeemed his soul 
from death; and, surely, the first duty of a Christian 
was to obey his Savior. He was too young to enjoy 
the delusions of sophistry and expediency. In his 
unsophisticated sincerity, he felt the full force of obli- 
gation to obedience. But what was he to do? To be 
immersed seemed the unequivocal command of the 
Law-giver. But this would involve a separation from 
the church and people whom he loved with ardent. 
Christian affection, and throw him among a strange 
people, with whose manners and customs he was unac- 
quainted. He had heard that the immersionists were 
an illiterate and conceited people, occupying an infe- 
rior rank in the social circle. But, besides these 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 19 

allegations against the Baptists, it was sufficiently 
evident that there was a sad defect in the education 
of their preachers. There was not, at this time, a 
Baptist college in Kentucky, and probably not one 
west of the Alleghany Mountains. The Baptists had 
few or no schools of even an academic grade. Three 
fourths of their ordained preachers, even at that time 
(1828), ''could not tell a noun from a verb." Of 
course, their congregations were correspondingly illit- 
erate. In addition to this, few of their preachers 
received any salary, and those few obtained only a 
trifling pittance. On the other hand, the ministers of 
the Presbyterian Church were all educated, as a pre- 
requisite to entering the sacred office. In accordance 
with the old proverb, ''Like priests, like people," their 
congregations were better educated than those of the 
Baptists. Expediency would surely have dictated to 
Mr. Fisher to remain in the Presbyterian Church. He 
probably felt impressed with a desire to preach the 
gospel even at the age of sixteen years. In the 
Presbyterian Church he would have the advantage of 
the best educated society in his country ; he would be 
associated with those among whom he had found the 
love of a Savior very precious to his soul, which had 
endeared them to him with a stronger attachment than 
any earthly tie; if called to preach the Gospel, he 
would sit in the councils of the learned, and associate, 
on terms of social equality, with ministers educated 
and refined, and would be pecuniarily sustained by the 



20 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

congregation to which he should "minister in holy 
things." Sound policy, and the most discreet pru- 
dence, dictated many strong reasons why he should 
remain in his present connection. There appeared but 
one reason why he should change this connection — and 
even that did not involve a condition of salvation — 
Jesus Christ had commanded him to be baptized. He 
was convinced that he had not obeyed that command. 
Did it not occur to him, again and again, that even 
the Baptists universally taught that "baptism is not 
essential to salvation ? " It, then, became a simple test 
of his love to the Savior of his soul. "If ye love me, 
keep my commandments." Did he love his Redeemer 
" more than father and mother," more than his church, 
more than distinction and worldly comfort, more than 
all worldly advantages? We shall see. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 21 



CHAPTER II. 

Here the boy Christian paused, while strong, opposing 
emotions struggled in his soul for pre-eminence. He 
stood on a fulcrum, where many thousands of others 
have stood, surrounded by similar circumstances, and 
racked by similar conflicting emotions. Dr. Alexander 
Carson, that giant intellect and prince of linguists of 
the Old World, paused and trembled at this point; 
but an ardent love for Jesus of Nazareth prevailed, 
and, by the abounding grace of God, he gave up ease, 
comfort, clerical honor, and high social position for 
poverty, persecution, and the approving smile of his 
Savior. The immortal Dr. Judson realized a similar 
crisis and felt the momentary pang ; but his great soul 
decided in favor of obedience to the Savior of sinners, 
and, for his sake, he cut loose from all earthly 
resources; and, many thousands of miles from the 
home of his youth, a penniless wanderer among hea- 
then strangers, with the wife of his youth clinging 
helplessly to him, for whom she had left home, and 
parents, and friends, and affluence, he leaned confid- 
ingly on the arm of Him who never disappoints those 
who trust Him. Luther Rice, that eminently pious 
and devoted man of God, who labored vrith Dr. Judson 



99 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



in the Burman Mission, experienced the same conflicts 
with, and followed the self-sacrificing example of, 
his illustrious colaborer. Drs. Archibald McClay and 
Duncan R. Campbell recognized the Divine command, 
to "be baptized," and with deep anguish of soul, yet 
with approving consciences and the encouraging prom- 
ises of a loving and beloved Savior, they bid adieu 
to parents and friends, left the beloved old "kirk" 
of Scotland, and quitted forever the "bonny green 
hills" of their childhood home, and came over the wide 
waters to cast in their lots with the simple, unpre- 
tending, but truth-loving. Baptists of the great w^estern 
w^ilderness. The same great obligation of obedience 
to the divine command has led hundreds of pious, 
godly ministers, from the Pedobaptist to the Baptist 
churches, in our own country ; among whom may be 
named Richard Fuller, N. M. Crawford, John F. South, 
John Bryce, Aaron Jones, Dr. January, J. M. Hurt, 
Samuel Crider, A. C. Dayton, Neal, Walker, Billingsly, 
Wright, Turner, and many others. But, notwithstand- 
ing the encouragement of so many illustrious examples, 
it is still a great cross to separate ones self from those 
he loves most, openly condemn, by example, their 
faith and practice, withdraw himself from the church 
of his ancestors, and unite with strangers so differ- 
ent in their doctrines, practices, and manners. One 
must pass the ordeal of a similar trial before he can 
appreciate it. While we should firmly condemn diso- 
bedience to the commands of our common Lord, a 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 23 

knowleda'G of the almost insurmountable obstacles in 
tlieir way should induce in us great charity toward our 
errino; brethren. 

Mr. Fisher did not hesitate long. He searched the 
Scriptures for the purpose of learning his Master's 
will, and not for the purpose of establishing a pre- 
conceived theory, as too many technical theologians do. 
He soon became fully satisfied that immersion was the 
only Scriptural baptism. He promptly applied for 
membership in a Baptist Church and demanded immer- 
sion. After satisfying the church of the genuineness 
of his conversion, he was, in A. D. 1829, baptized into 
the fellowship of David's Fork Church, Fayette County, 
Kentucky, by that eminently useful servant of God, 
Jeremiah Vardeman. He now found rest in "the 
answer of a good conscience toward God." The con- 
flict was over. He had decided in favor of duty at the 
sacrifice of many strong inclinations of the flesh, and 
the calmness of soul and peace of conscience he 
enjoyed was an ample reward for the sacrifice he had 
made. If all who suffer the gnawings of an uneasy 
conscience, from the same cause that led Mr. Fisher 
to a change of church relationship, would follow his 
example, there would be many cheerful hearts, which 
are now filled with gloom and remorse, and many 
bright and confident hopes, that are now beclouded 
with sad forebodings and chilling doubts. Mr. Fisher 
was preaching, several years ago, to a congregation 
of which Wm. B. Smith was a listener. Mr. Smith 



24 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

was then a pious member of a Pedobaptist Church. 
The minister used the illustration of presenting to a 
creditor the choice of three ten-dollar bank-notes in 
payment of a debt due him. The creditor seemed at a 
loss to know which bill to take. Two of the bills were 
new and clean ; the third was old and somewhat smutted. 
Several persons present said the new bills would do, 
and several other persons said they were as good as 
any bank-notes; but quite a number of good judges 
of money said they were both counterfeit. When the 
old note was presented, all agreed that it was a good, 
genuine bill. ''Now," said Mr. Fisher, "if you had 
choice, which of the bills would you take? This," 
continued the speaker, "is a fit illustration of the 
'■ three modes ' of baptism. Many wise men say pour- 
ing and sprinkling will do; many others say they are 
genuine Scripture modes ; but many other good judges 
say they are purely human inventions, and are wholly 
worthless; but all denominations agree that immer- 
sion is valid. Now, if you had choice, which mode 
would you take?" Mr. Smith, whose conscience had 
probably not been exactly easy on the subject of his 
baptism, was so forcibly struck with the fitness of this 
simple illustration that he immediately commenced the 
investigation of the subject, and a short time afterward 
was immersed into the fellowship of a Baptist Church. 
Mr. Smith now lives at Lagrange, Kentucky, and is 
one of the most useful Baptist ministers in that portion 
of the state. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 2o 



CHAPTEE III. 

When Mr. Fisher joined the Baptist Church, at 
David's Fork, he was about seventeen years of age. 
He seemed at this time to enjoy an enviable position. 
He had acquired the trade of a tailor, by which he 
could make a comfortable support. He had acquired 
habits of frugality, industry, and perseverance. His 
intellectual culture and mental development were far 
superior to most youths of his age and opportunities; 
and, above all, he had sought and obtained peace with 
his Creator in the days of his youth. Surely there 
is no other condition in this lower world so enviable as 
that of a truly Christian young man. He is the high- 
est type of LIFE known to man. He has entered the 
threshold of manly duties and joys, with all the pleas- 
ing allurements of undimmed hopes clustering around 
his flowery pathway. All the purer passions of his 
nature are just developed, and retain their vernal 
freshness ; his soul is thrilled to gentle raptures with 
the poetic fancies of youthful love; his religion is 
arranged, by infinite wisdom and love, with especial 
reference to his greatest good, and hence allows him 
the fullest enjoyment of every earthly good, while it 
proposes to restrain him from every thing detrimental 



26 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

to the sum of his happiness in the aggregate. While 
his heart bounds with pleasurable delight in the enjoy- 
ment of earthly good, his religion is the living prin- 
ciple of his purer emotional nature, and moves his 
soul to inexpressible joy in love and gratitude to his 
Creator, and even his earthly joys are elevated and 
refined by that emotion of gratitude to the great Giver 
of all good, that vents itself in the sublime expres- 
sion: "Behold what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of 
God." And even if death should overtake him, it will 
be to him an infinite good, since it will admit him to 
the far more exalted joys of a holier and fuller life. 

This is the happy estate that Mr. Fisher was nearly 
approaching at this period. He possessed a strong, 
healthful, physical constitution ; an active, ardent tem- 
perament, and was literally full of life. He possessed 
a soul full of the fire of poetry, a lively appreciation 
of the beautiful, and a vivid imagination, wreathed 
with a thousand brilliant flowers and sparkling gems 
of fancy. He had, a year before, professed the re- 
ligion of Jesus, and now consecrated himself afresh to 
his service, by freely submitting to his will, at a great 
sacrifice of his carnal inclinations; and he was doubt- 
less very happy. But this is not a world in which to 
"loiter and enjoy." This life is suited to, and des- 
tined for, active labor. One duty rapidly succeeds 
another. The young Christian had enjoyed "the an- 
swer of a good conscience toward God" in this last 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISIIEK. 27 

act of Christian obedience but a short time, when he 
began to feel deeply impressed with the duty of 
preaching the gospel to his dying fellow-creatures. 
He had most probably imbibed, in that highly respect- 
able church, from whose communion he had recently 
separated himself (and for which, notwithstanding a 
sense of duty to his Savior had compelled him to 
abandon it, he ever afterward exhibited great respect 
and the kindest feeling), the Presbyterian idea of the 
necessity of a classical education as a prerequisite to 
preaching the gospel. With the apostle Paul's ex- 
pression, "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel," 
pressing like a leaden weight on his mind, and his idea 
of a qualification for preaching exhibiting his utter 
unfitness for the work, and his poverty hedging up the 
pathway to an education, he was again overwhelmed in 
a sea of trouble and perplexity. "I felt," said the 
venerable Dr. Yaughan (under similar circumstances), 
*^' that I would rather die than attempt to preach, 
and yet I could not live without preaching." How 
many ^young men in the humble walks of poverty 
have struggled with their convictions of duty to 
preach the mercy of a Savior, and yet struggled on 
in secret and in vain? To feel that a Savior has died 
to save one's soul from eternal misery, and then directs 
him to tell the glorious news to others wdien poverty 
denies him the ability to comply, is a painful condition 
from which many noble hearts have suffered torture 
for a long succession of years. We should hail with 



28 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

grateful hearts the happy clay when greater facilities 
are afforded for their education. 

The doctrine of a divine personal call to the gospel 
ministry, in the very nature of the case, can not 
admit of scientific proof, nor, without granting the 
truth of the Sacred Scriptures, of a logical demonstra- 
tion. It is purely a doctrine of the Bible; and for 
testimony to its truth, like that of spiritual agency in 
the conversion of a soul, men must depend on the ar- 
bitrary teachings of divine revelation. But the doc- 
trine is by no means contrary to reason. All systems 
of correct reasoning must recoo;nize the existence of 
an absolute Creator; and an absolute Creator must 
possess absolute control over his creatures. He may 
influence them, then, by wdiatever means he chooses, to 
any course of action his will may elect. But that he 
possesses the ability has probably never been denied 
by any reasoner worthy of respect. Then the ques- 
tion is. Does he exercise the divine prerogative of 
influencing men to execute his will? This is not the 
place to enter into an elaborate discussion of this 
question, if indeed it be a question. It is sufficient 
here simply to recognize the well-known truth that 
the revealed word of God abundantly teaches the 
exercise of divine influence over the hearts of men; 
as hardening the heart of Pharaoh; hardening "Avhom 
he will;" opening "the heart of Lydia;" taking 
away " the stony heart," giving " them a heart of 
flesh;" sending heathen armies to chastise Israel; put- 



LIFE OF THOMAS j". FISHER. 29 

ting a lying spirit in the mouth of Ahab's prophets, 
etc. 

Answerable to, and confirmatory of, the Scriptural 
teaching, in regard to a special call to the gospel 
ministry, we have a wide range of human experience, 
attested by thousands of the best men this world has 
ever produced. That many attempt to preach who 
have not been called to that work, need not be 
doubted, and their testimony to that fact need not 
be questioned; but that can never prove that others 
have not been called to preach, any more than one 
man's assertion, that he has never had the toothache, 
will prove that no other man has ever had it. But 
it is abundantly taught, in our medical books, that 
there is a very painful disease, called toothache. 
Many good, reliable men tell us that they have never 
felt it; but many others, equally reliable, tell us that 
they have suifered much from its excruciating pains, 
and, in testimony of their sad experience, have en- 
dured the painful process and life-long inconvenience 
of having their teeth extracted. We are compelled to 
believe their testimony, though it do not accord with 
our experience, and is to us purely a fact of human 
revelation. Now, our book of religion abundantly 
teaches a call to the ministry, and is equally clear 
in teaching that the Holy Spirit influences the hearts 
and actions of men. Many truthful men tell us they 
have never felt an impression of duty to preach the 
gospel; but many others, equally reliable in every 



o 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



tiling else, tell us that tliey have felt an overwhelming 
necessity laid upon them, until they have felt to cry 
out, "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel!" "Many 
a night," said the venerable and lamented Thomas 
Scriviner, "have I tossed myself on my bed till the 
morning watches, suffering from the pangs of an 
outraged conscience, ever urging me to preach the 
gospel to dying sinners." " I could find no rest, day 
nor night," said a most excellent minister, who is still 
living, '"until I commenced preaching Christ cruci- 
fied." An eminently pious sister related, some years 
ago, the following anecdote of her son, an only child 
of wealthy parents : " When James was thirteen years 
old," said she, "he came running into the house one 
evening, with the tears streaming down his cheeks. 
He had been in the woods, praying all day. He came 
up to me and said: 'Mother, I shall have to preach 
the gospel; but do not tell the boys, or they will 
plague me at school and call me " the little preacher." ' 
James commenced the study of medicine w^hile yet a 
youth, but he soon became restless and abandoned it. 
In early young manhood he v^as placed in ofiices of 
trust and profit. He soon became one of the most 
popular young men in the state. And few young men 
in Kentucky had opened before them more brilliant 
prospects of wealth and fame; but the murmurings 
of a restless conscience ever followed him up, urging 
him to proclaim to the world the way of life and salva- 
tion. When he was unable to resist longer, he turned 



LIFE OF TIIOxAIAS J. FISHER. 31 

away from the bright prospects of worldly glory, and 
commenced holdmg up before his fellow-men the 
brighter halo of divine glory that encircles the cross. 
God has wonderfully blessed his labors in the gospel, 
and he is now, in the noon of manhood, one of the 
most useful preachers in Kentucky. 

Not only have many thousands of good and pious 
men asserted the power of divine impressions on their 
consciences, urging them to preach the gospel, but they 
have evidenced the truth of their assertions by making 
every conceivable sacrifice to comply with the heavenly 
call. How many have turned away from bright pros- 
pects of worldly aggrandizements, to follow the humble 
calling of a gospel preacher? How many have aban- 
doned lucrative employments to wear out their lives in 
poverty for the gospel's sake ? How many have left 
the quiet pleasures of a happy home to labor '' without 
price" among strangers, who slighted their calling and 
mocked their mission, sustained only by the hope of 
winning souls from death and obtaining the approving 
smile of their beloved Redeemer? Poor in the midst 
of wealth and luxury, shunned as uncongenial associ- 
ates in the midst of gayety and refinements, treated 
as boors or enthusiasts among the great and learned, 
pitied as unfortunate objects of charity among their 
friends, every-where w^atched by a thousand keen eyes 
of criticism, and their most trifling acts of imprudence 
magnified and circulated as important noAvs, often the 
objects of unmitigated slander, pioneers amid the dan- 



32 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

gers and privations of frontier life, homeless wanderers 
and sufferers in the benighted lands of heathendom, 
their names and profession a reproach and the play- 
things of wits and wags and drunken ballad-singers, 
ministers to the Avants of the poor and friendless, 
watchers at the bedside of the sick and dying, and 
comforters to the bereaved and broken-hearted, they 
endure all things, suffer all things, in obedience to the 
divine call, lay their worn-out bodies down on couches 
of poverty, and go up to the celestial gates to receive 
their reward from Him who called them to labor and 
suffer for the honor of his name and the good of his 
fellow-creatures. 

To spend this life in faithfully preaching the gospel 
of the Son of God is a hard task, but to resist the 
impressions of the divine will upon the conscience is 
a still more difficult task. 'T were better to say, 
'' Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." But the 
gospel ministry has its joys as well as its sorrows. 
It is a life of sacred consecration. The soul of a 
faithful preacher feasts much on the purer joys of 
the higher life. He lives nearer to God, and more 
fully realizes the riches of the divine promises and 
the security of the divine protection. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER IV. 

NoTWiTHSTANDiNa the great perplexity a desire to 
preach the gospel and the adverse circumstances sur- 
rounding him involved Mr. Fisher in, he was not long 
in forming a fixed purpose. Like little Samuel of old, 
and the celebrated Spurgeon of our day, he was very 
young when God put it into his heart to preach Jesus 
and the resurrection ; but, like them, he was prompt to 
obey the call. In less than a year after he was bap- 
tized he took a letter of recommendation from his 
church, and left home to seek a preparation for 
preaching the gospel. This was another hard trial. 
The home of our childhood, no matter how humble it 
may be, is ever dear to our hearts ; and wherever we 
may wander we carry its gilded picture in our bosoms. 
It has sometimes been said that it is unmanly to weep ; 
but it is surely inhuman not to weep when parting 
with a mother and a childhood home, with a proba- 
bility that we shall never see them again. And when 
a young man first leaves home to be absent a few 
years, he can never find the fair, bright home of his 
childhood again. He will never lose its picture, and 
may return to the same spot again, but a sad change 
will have passed over it, like a blighting mildew, and 



34 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

marred its beauty forever. Its noble hills have dwin- 
dled away into mere undulations ; its giant forest trees 
have dwarfed to diminutive proportions ; its grand old 
forest has become a mere brushwood ; the old orchard 
is nearer the house than it used to be ; the large, flow- 
ing brook, on whose banks the boys assembled with 
"hooks and lines" for their holiday sports, has be- 
come a muddy little rivulet, and even the dear old 
house looks mean and shabby. The parents, too, are 
looking older and more sad, but, thank God, none the 
less affectionate and dear to the heart. The brothers 
and sisters are married and gone; the neighbors and 
school-mates are scattered abroad, and the little chil- 
dren have grow^n up to be men and women, and home 
is lost. 

Such w^as the loss sustained by our young " preacher 
in prospect " when he quitted the parental roof to be- 
come a wanderer for long years among strangers. 
But happily ho was ignorant of this great loss at that 
time, save when the premonitions of instinct whispered 
it in mournful cadence to his heart. Only those who 
have left home in youth, and wandered friendless and 
poor among strangers, can appreciate the deep sadness 
and loneliness of heart at this period. But he had a 
great object in view, and his soul was fixed with a 
strong purpose. A strong, determined will is next to 
omnipotent ; and he did not falter in his purpose. 
The goal was before him ; he had good health and a 
strong arm, and he was determined to reach it. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 35 

He made his way to Middletown, Pennsylvania. 
Here it is probable he labored for a time, in order to 
procure the means of attending school. After remain- 
ing here a short time, he placed himself under the 
tutorship of a Mr. Sloan, a Presbyterian preacher. 
Pie remained in Mr. Sloan's academy probably about 
a year, earnestly devoting himself to his studies. He 
had an active, vigorous mind, and with diligent appli- 
cation made rapid advancement in his studies. Either 
because there was no Baptist Church in reach, or for 
some other cause, he did not unite with any church 
while at Middletown. But on his arrival at Pittsburg, 
in March, 1831, he presented his letter to a Baptist 
Church in that city, and as his church letter had been 
written about two years, he presented, for the satisfac- 
tion of the church, a letter from Mr. Sloan, in which 
it was stated that Mr. Fisher was a young man of 
good, moral habits, and was a good student. He was 
received into the fellowship of the church. He here 
became a student under Elder S. Williams, pastor of 
the church with which he had just united. He kept 
ever before him the great object to which he had fully 
resolved to devote the energies of his life. While he 
pursued his studies in Pittsburg he slept on a straw 
pallet in an attic, and bought such coarse food as 
would sustain animal life ; the whole cost of his living- 
amounted to thirty-seven and one half cents per week.. 
But his anxiety to preach the gospel was such that 
even the pinchings of poverty, amounting to absolute 



3G LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHER. 

want, did not deter liim from his purpose, nor damp 
his ardor in pursuit of the qualifications necessary for 
his great work. He could have made money by labor- 
ing with his hands, but he felt that his education had 
been neglected too long already, and that he now had 
not a day to lose. His education was directed with 
especial reference to the work of the ministry. He 
did not, therefore, take a regular academic course of 
study, but pursued those branches which it was sup- 
posed would best qualify him for the work of the gos- 
pel ministry in the short time he would be able to 
spend in school. 

During the second year of his stay at Pittsburg, in 
A. D. 1832, he was licensed to preach. Under the 
personal superintendence of Mr. Williams his progress 
in study was rapid, and he began to look forward w^ith 
eagerness to the time, not far distant, when he could 
^'take the field." But here again a sad misfortune 
befell him. He had become inured to extreme pov- 
erty, and was willing to endure it with cheerfulness, 
if thereby he could continue his studies to a speedy 
completion, but any thing that Avould thwart or retard 
this desire would be regarded a great calamity. 

About this time the small-pox became an epidemic 
in the city, and Mr. Fisher contracted the terrible dis- 
ease, then much more fatal than it now is. His con- 
dition was indeed a sad one. His studies, that he 
loved as young Jacob did Rachel, were laid aside, 
and he confined to his pallet. The disease exerted 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 37 

its full strength on his system; but his physical con- 
stitution "was superior to its severest shock, and after a 
long confinement he came forth into the open air again, 
but so terribly "marked" that he bore a marred visage 
to his grave. Whether he again entered Mr. Will- 
iams's school or not does not appear; but not long 
after this, probably in the spring of 1833, he returned 
to his native state, and entered into the work which he 
had so ardently desired to engage in. His improve- 
ment in preaching was even more rapid than his ad- 
vancement in his academic studies. In 1834 he was 
solemnly ordained to the work of the gospel ministry, 
at the solicitation of the Baptist Church at Lawrence- 
burg, Kentucky, and immediately entered into the pas- 
toral office of this church. In the following winter 
(February, 1835) he was called to the pastorate of Mill 
Creek Church, near Bardstown. He did not long re- 
main in these pastoral relations. His gift w^as mani- 
festly that of an evangelist. To this work he was 
pre-eminently adapted, and he entered into it with a 
zeal and energy worthy of that glorious cause. To 
this work he mainly devoted his great and tireless 
energies during a period of thirty-two years. In the 
great success that attended his labors as a revivalist, 
he probably by far excelled every other minister on 
the American continent. In our future pages we shall 
attempt to analyze his character as a revivalist, and 
exhibit the elements of his wonderful success. 

4 



S3 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER y. 

"A PRUDENT man," says Solomon, "foreseeth the 
evil, and hideth himself;" but an all-wise God per- 
fectly foresees the exigencies of all times, and pre- 
pares to meet them. This is a comforting doctrine 
in the Christian's creed, and the observing Christian is 
strengthened in his faith by seeing its truth in its 
practical workings. There were two new features in 
the operations of religious enterprise, destined to exert 
an almost miraculous influence on the worldno-s of 
Christianity, introduced about the time Mr. Fisher en- 
tered the ministry. One was the introduction of pro- 
tracted meetings^ and the other the rise of Camphellism. 
There were two other enterprises set in motion about 
the same time, destined to exert a great influence on 
the Baptist denomination in Kentucky: the erection 
and chartering of Georgetown College, and the organ- 
izing of the General Association of the Baptists of 
Kentucky. Upon all these great enterprises, Mr. 
Fisher brought to bear the wonderful poAvers of his 
great, impassioned oratory. 

This is not the place to give a history of these great 
enterprises; but it may not be out of place to give a 
slight notice of them, and especially the two former, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 39 

as far as tliey affected, or were affected by, the subject 
of this memoir. 

Previous to tlie chartering of Georgetown College, in 
A, D. 1829, there was no Baptist school of high order 
in the state, and very few classically educated minis- 
ters — probably not one who was a native of Kentucky. 
The country was comparatively new, and the great 
mass of its citizens were poor, and too busily engaged 
in cutting away the immense forest that spread out 
over almost its entire territory, building rude houses 
for their families to live in, and "hunting" their meat 
in "the tangled wild-wood," to give much attention to 
the subject of education. Indeed, to educate their 
children was impossible, even if they had desired it. 
They had neither money, school-houses, nor teachers. 
Here and there, scattered over the country, were a few 
little log-huts, sometimes without chimneys, in which 
some crabbed adventurer, "too lazy to do any thing 
else," would engage to teach, to the best of his abil- 
ity, spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic (as far as 
the rule of three), during a term of three months, for 
the sum of eight dollars per month (sometimes as low 
as six dollars) — half the subscription price to be paid 
in trade. Thus indentured, he would borrow a split- 
bottomed chair from the nearest neighbor, arm .himself 
with a bundle of beech limbs, and enter the school- 
house "next Monday morning two hours by sun." 
With a grim visage, more dreadful to the children 
than the scream of a panther, he would "call to book," 



40 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

and, with his bundle of switches at his right hand, seat 
himself with awful dignity. Here he would sit till 
''an hour by sun in the evening" (giving "an hour's 
play -time at noon") five days in each week, alternately 
dozing, blowing his "big red nose" with frightful effect 
on the excited nerves of the urchins, and flogging the 
"boys and gals" in turn. Saturday and Sunday Avere 
the teacher's drinking days, and not unfrequently it 
required a good portion of Monday to get his thirst 
fully quenched. On the first holiday that came, or at 
the end of the session, "the big boys" would ''turn 
out the teacher," "and he w^ould compromise with them 
by sending for "a gallon of liquor" and "treating 
the school;" and, in consequence, "the school" would 
get drunk, and the boys would have several fights. 
Some of the larger boys, who could not be supposed 
to feel very amiable toward one who had exercised a 
most cruel tyranny over them during a reign of three 
months, now that they were free from his "rules," 
would probably flog the teacher. Thus "moralized 
and enlightened," the children would return to their 
parents, and remain at home till another three-months^ 
school was taken up the next summer, and the teacher 
would go home to spend his wages for bread and 
whisky, or wander off to get another school. If any 
one should think this picture overdrawn, let him ask 
the first old backwoodsman he meets to relate his ex- 
perience at '-the old log school-house," and he can be 
readily satisfied. 



LIFE OF TIIO.AIAS J. FISHER. 41 

With few better schools than those just described, it 
was impossible for the youth to be educated; conse- 
quently, the first and second generations raised in the 
new settlements possessed less intellectual culture than 
the emigrants themselves. Most of the religious teach- 
ers of the people emigrated from the same country 
with them, or were raised up among them in the wil- 
derness. Hence they understood the habits, manners, 
and local language of the people, and consequently 
were able to make the people understand them. The 
preachers labored on their little farms, cleared away 
the forest, eno-ao-ed in the mechanical arts, killed their 
meat in the forest with their hunting rifles, caught 
their fish from the rivers, and lived in their rude 
cabins, just as the people whom they taught did. 
Their education was little better than that of the 
people generally. They could barely read the Scrip- 
tures intelligibly and "give out a hymn." A few of 
them could not read at all. But they were generally 
pious, earnest, devotional, and eminently spiritual. 
They labored hard with their hands five days in the 
week, reading their Bibles and hymn-books (almost 
the only books they possessed) when the}- could snatch 
a moment from their daily work, and preached to the 
people on Saturdays and Sundays. They received no 
pay for preaching, and, still holding in remembrance, 
either from personal recollection or the traditions of 
their fathers, the oppression of "Episcopal taxes" 
under the English Government, they earnestly warned 



42 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

the people against a "hireling ministry." The people 
were thus convinced that their ministers were seeking 
no advantage of them; and, but for the natural antip- 
athy of the unregenerate human heart, they would 
have exercised an almost unlimited influence over 
them. A few educated preachers came among them 
from the older states, but they were generally men 
of no other qualifications for the Christian ministry, 
and certainly the furthest from being adapted to the 
wants of an uneducated, laboring people. Some of 
them gave no evidence of piety or devotion. Their 
preaching was cold and lifeless, and wholly incompre- 
hensible to their audiences. They had no disposition 
or capacity to mix with the people, and had the con- 
ceited vanity to make a display of their learning and 
imagined superiority. This produced its natural effect. 
Their influence was only evil. Colleges and college- 
bred preachers, and even learning itself, became objects 
of bitter contempt to both preachers and people. The 
preachers denounced them with withering scorn from 
the pulpit, and many of them publicly gloried in their 
own ignorance. This state of affairs existed nearly all 
over the state, probably as late as A. D. 1825, and in 
large portions of it much later ; indeed, it is not wholly 
eradicated from our territory yet, and especially among 
the particular and separate or regular Baptists. 

While the people were uneducated and poor they did 
not need an educated ministry. A learned preacher 
could not adapt himself to their wants and manners, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 43 

nor enter into their feelings. He would also desire to 
apply himself to study and enjoy the luxuries of refined 
life. This would involve the necessity of a salary that 
a poor people could not pay, and his demanding it 
would cause an ignorant people to suspect his sin- 
cerity, and attribute to him selfish motives, and conse- 
quently his influence over them would be destroyed or 
perverted. Although it was not strictly true, there 
was much plausibility in the arguments of the times, 
that "the preacher had as much time to preach as 
they had to hear him." He devoted very little time 
to study, except at night, and during such weather as 
neither he nor they could be at w^ork. While at home 
he labored as much as any of them, and his style of 
living was not above an average of theirs. The differ- 
ence in their loss of time and his was that he attended 
on many congregations while each of them attended 
but one. At this, however, he did not murmur, and 
they were mutually satisfied. But when wealth began 
to accumulate in the older portions of the state, the 
people began to educate their children, and educated 
people from the older states began to move in among 
them. This created a demand for educated preachers. 
They were necessary to contend with learned infi- 
delity, and the people were capable of appreciating 
them, and able to sustain them, in their studies. But 
God, who never overlooks the real wants of his people, 
directed the means, by which they were supplied as 
rapidly as their needs required. As a timely supply 



44 LIFE OE THOMAS J, FISIIEE. 

to our need, Georgetown College came into existence 
just at the time it was demanded. Sooner, it would 
have proved a failure, and consequently an evil : just 
at the time it came it was an inestimable blessing to 
the denomination. Bat we needed some educated 
ministers before this college could supply them. But 
God raised them up, and among them T. J. Fisher. 
Mr. Fisher did not possess a classical education ; but 
he came upon the stage of ministerial action in a 
transition period, and it was fully adequate to the 
times. We are made to wonder at the chain of cir- 
cumstances which led him to obtain it, and to ask, Did 
not the finger of God direct them? It has been seen 
how he struggled up from poverty, overcoming almost 
insurmountable obstacles, meeting at every step with 
embarrassing discouragements, distressed by w^ant and 
disease, and sustained amid it all by the single idea 
(new to the Baptists of Kentucky) of educating him- 
self for the gospel ministry. But why not preach 
without an education, as nearly all the Baptist ministers 
had done in Kentucky since the state was settled? 
Simply : the cause of Christ demanded educated min- 
isters, and a merciful God was supplying them. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 45 



CHAPTER YI. 

The spirit of Christianity, the great fountain of 
divine grace supplied to man, like the mighty ocean, 
is ever ebbing and flowing ; but, like the mighty ocean, 
it never goes dry. Revivals and declarations of relig- 
ious interest have alternated in all ages of the churches. 
Sometimes it seems that religion is almost banished 
from the earth, while only a few of its most faithful 
devotees, like Elijah the Prophet, go mourning, with 
sad countenances and bowed-down heads, about the 
waste places of Zion. Again, like a mighty river over- 
flowing all its banks, the hallowed influences of divine 
grace seem to flood the whole land, while the sons of 
God shout for joy, and the virgin daughters of Jerusa-- 
lem clap their hands with holy delight. Thus, ever 
ebbinsj and flowinoj, but risinsj hiojher and recedinoj less 
at every tide, we wait and hope for the glorious day 
when it shall cover the whole earth as the waters cover 
the channel of the deep. 

The history of religious revivals in Kentucky since 
its first settlement by white people, ninety-one years 
ago, would form a book of thrilling interest. Ken- 
tucky seems to have been the birth-place of great 
religious revivals in this country. In the early days 

5 



46 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

of the commonwealth they generally spread among the 
churches at periods several years distant from each 
other, and continued from six to twelve months, and 
sometimes for even a longer period. "I remember," 
said the venerable Dr. Vaughan, to whom the writer 
of these pages is much indebted for valuable infor- 
mation concerning the early history of the Baptist 
denomination in Kentucky, "I remember that while 
I was trying to seek the salvation of my soul, in 
A. D. 1810, an infidel in the neighborhood said to 
me, 'Ever since I can remember, about every seventh 
year, a great many people have turned fools and joined 
the church.' " But these periodical revivals, so far as 
human agency was concerned, were conducted very 
differently from what they now are. What we now 
call protracted meetings were unknown. There was 
generally Saturday and Sunday preaching once a 
month, and occasionally a sermon by a visiting 
preacher at the churches. Sometimes there would 
be preaching once a week at different private houses 
in the neighborhood of a church, and occasionally there 
would be preaching every night in a week from house 
to house. It was a custom with Walter Warder, Jere- 
miah Vardeman, and others of their times, to travel 
long distances once or twice a year, preaching at least 
one sermon a day, going and returning. During A. D. 
1828 an unprecedented revival pervaded large districts 
of Kentucky, and great numbers were added to the 
churches. To this revival, it is probable, protracted 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FTPHER. 47 

meetings owe their origin in this countrj. Within a 
few years after this they became a popular and fixed 
policy among the churches. It has been observed that 
this was a new enterprise, at least in modern times, 
and seemed to require for its greater success a peculiar 
order of talent. Just about this time God had raised 
up a number of young men who seemed especially 
designed for this great w^ork. The most prominent 
among these was our poor pock-marked student at 
Pittsburg. The name of T. J. Fisher must ever be 
prominently associated with the rise and early progress 
of protracted meetings in Kentucky. The Baptists have 
ever been steadfast adherents to what they deemed the 
original principles, practices, and policy of the Chris- 
tian religion. They have always contended that the 
Eible contained a perfect and finished system of relig- 
ion, not only setting forth all the doctrines of salvation, 
but also giving full directions for their practical appli- 
cation to men, as well as presenting a clearly defined 
system of church policy. Any apparent innovation on 
their ancient customs, therefore, excited their jealousy, 
and met with strong opposition. Their democratic 
form of government vested the power of sanction or 
rejection in the hands of the whole membership of the 
churches ; hence they move slowly in the adoption of 
any new enterprise, and it must pass through the fiery 
ordeal of their criticism before it can meet with even a 
tacit approval. As may be readily supposed, protracted 
meetings, although really involving no new principle. 



48 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

and having at least the precedent of Christ's example 
at Jerusalenij met with a stern opposition that has not 
been entirely overcome after a trial of more than thirty 
years ; and it must be confessed that, notwithstanding 
the many apparent advantages they possess, many evils 
have grown out of an indiscreet conduct of protracted 
meetings. Conducted by men of unsound theology, or 
rather who taught little or no theology, but mainly 
appealed to human passions, these " protracted efforts," 
it may well be feared, have brought into the churches 
many unregenerate members, the evils of which are 
too palpable to need a portrayal here. This, however, 
is not a legitimate argument against protracted meet- 
ings, but rather an argument in favor of properly 
conducting them. Now that they have become a fixed 
custom among all of our churches, and appear to be 
indispensable to their greater prosperity, it is to be 
earnestly hoped that the churches and ministers will 
turn their attention to correcting their imperfections, 
and averting the evils that grow out of improperly 
conducting them. 

The religion of Jesus Christ prominently teaches 
that men's moral actions will correspond with their 
moral principles — not necessarily the principles which 
they profess and teach, but the principles which they 
hold at heart. Hence justification is by faith; that is, 
if a man "believes with all his heart" the principles 
of the Christian religion, his actions will correspond 
with those principles, and he is justified by his faith 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 49 

before God, and by his works before men. But 
*' faith" — not the moral quality of the heart in which 
it has root, for this is always produced by the Holy 
Spirit — " comes by hearing ;" hence the great impor- 
tance of having correct teachers, and the equally great 
importance of those teachers at all times preaching 
faithfully the doctrines of the gospel. But faithful, 
correct teaching is never more essential than during 
the progress of a protracted meeting. At such a time 
even the unconverted listen with more than ordinary 
interest to a proclamation of the gospel. It may be 
the first time they have given the subject particular 
attention. False teaching at such a time may delude 
them with a vain hope that will prove their eternal 
ruin. Young converts, the babes in Christ, are now 
peculiarly tender and susceptible of lasting impres- 
sions. "As young birds," said an aged and pious 
deacon, "open their mouths wide to receive greedily 
whatever the parent brings to the nest, so young con- 
verts are ready to swallow down every doctrine pre- 
sented by their father in the gospel." These early 
impressions are ever the most lasting. How essential 
then that they should be correct impressions ! A large 
number of young converts introduced into a church at 
one time, having imbibed false doctrines from a teacher 
whom they love and reverence next to their Savior, 
may introduce discord into the church, paralyze its 
discipline, reflect false doctrines, and mar its useful- 
ness, as well as give much trouble and perplexity to 



50 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

the pastor. The older members of the church, "who 
for months or years have been cold and barren in soul, 
have their hearts warmed toward the minister God has 
sent to become an instrument in reviving their spirits 
and leading them back to the enjoyment of a Savior's 
love. Their hearts become tender and impressible, and 
readily receive doctrines they would promptly reject at 
other times. As the impressions made on the hot 
steel in forming the mechanic's file can never after- 
ward be hammered out, so impressions made upon a 
heart glowing with the warmth of divine love can 
never be wholly eradicated. 

Every competent school-teacher knows that it is 
much more difficult to educate a child that has been 
incorrectly taught than it is to educate one that has 
not been taught at all. This principle is equally appli- 
cable to religious teaching. For the reasons enumer- 
ated above, and many others, a religious teacher, and 
especially an evangelist, should be sound in the Chris- 
tian faith. 

An overweening anxiety to be accounted a success- 
ful revivalist is as unholy a passion as any other 
species of human ambition, and is likely to lead to 
much evil. To admit an unconverted man into the 
church is likely to do more harm than to debar a 
converted man from church privileges. It is not only 
an injury to the church, but is likely to prove a fatal 
injury to the deluded sinner. Instead, therefore, of 
striving to bring as many as possible into the church, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 51 

great care should be taken to impress the minds of the 
hearers -with the indispensable necessity of a sensible 
change of heart, and to examine carefully the evidences 
of true conversion in every candidate for church mem- 
bership. This was a custom of our pioneer fathers, 
eminently worthy to be retained by their descendants. 
A too frequent neglect of it since the rise of pro- 
tracted meetings has been detrimental to the spii-itu- 
ality of the churches in no slight degree. The sooner 
the churches return to the custom of carefully exam- 
ining their candidates for membership, the better for 
their purity and prosperity. 

Every protracted meeting held "with a church which 
has a pastor should be conducted by the pastor when 
circumstances will admit of it. Every such meeting 
is, in some sense, a crisis in the history of the church 
it is held with, and the future prosperity of the church 
depends much on its success or failure. It is a reap- 
ing time, when the fruits of a faithful pastor's labors 
are gathered. He ought to be present and direct the 
reapers. It is a favorable time to win the affection 
of his people, and especially of the young converts, 
without which he can not exercise the proper influence 
over them in the pastoral relation. He also best 
understands the character of the people of his con- 
gregation, and hence knows better how to approach 
them than does a stranger. Undue excitement blinds 
and confuses rather than enlio-htens the minds of men. 
When, therefore, it is desired to teach them the most 



52 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

important of all truths, earnest calmness rather than 
a wild furor should be sought. The gospel itself, 
without any auxiliaries, when appreciated, excites the 
minds of men sufficiently. When the heart is excited, 
let it be by the quickening and illuminating influence 
of the Holy Spirit, and not by appeals to the passions 
of men. 

But, after the use of all possible prudence and dis- 
cretion that the best and wisest men are capable of, 
the solemn question still presses itself on the heart 
and mind of the faithful man of God, "Who is suffi- 
cient for these things?'^ Feeling this, the minister 
ought to bring into this fearfully responsible work 
every member of the church, as well as all visiting 
brethren and sisters — as nearly^ at least, as it is pos- 
sible for him to do. An idler is in the way. Here, it 
may be said very emphatically, " He that is not for me 
is against me." To engage every Christian present 
in that department of the work to which he is best 
adapted is, so far as human means are concerned, of 
paramount importance. It is one of the beauties of 
Christian labor, that every member of the whole body 
of Christ can perform a part equally acceptable to the 
great Master; and not only so, but the individuaFs 
full enjoyment of a revival depends upon his taking an 
appropriate part in the work. One of the most happy 
gifts a revivalist can possess is the capacity of calling 
into the work the members of any church he may be 
laboring with. God blesses the laborer, not the idler. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 53 

But let it never be forgotten, nor the teachings for 
one hour neglected, that all the work of salvation is 
of God. All the means that can be used, however 
wisely directed, can no more revive religion in the 
soul, or convert a sinner to the love and service of the 
Lord Jesus without the divine blessing, than a farmer, 
by active and skillful cultivation of the soil can raise 
a crop of grain without rain and sunshine. So also, 
as the farmer can not reap a harvest without prudent 
cultivation, neither may we hope for a revival of re- 
ligion or the conversion of sinners without the use of 
the means God has appointed. To use all the avail- 
able means, then, is an imperative duty; but to pray for 
the divine blessing upon the means, and trust in God' 
for its bestowment, is equally indispensable. The most 
important duty, as well as the most exalted privilege, 
in conducting a protracted meeting, is earnest, devo- 
tional prayer. 

Necessary as is correct teaching, earnest exhorta- 
tion, and devotional praise, constant, earnest prayer 
is still more essential to acceptable service as well as 
success. In this great work the highest attainable 
degree of spirituality should be sought both by the 
ministers and members. All feasting and revelry, as 
Avell as light or worldly conversation, and, as nearly 
as practicable, all worldly business, should be avoided 
during the intervals of public worship. The time 
should be spent in religious conversation and secret 
prayer. 



54 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

Let every minister of Jesus who would win many 
souls to Christ live near the cross, be much upon his 
knees, and with a humble dependence on God for 
success give himself to active labor and earnest 
thought. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 55 



CHAPTER YII. 

Every tornado that sweeps over the forest leaves 
some new feature in the landscape ; every fluctuating 
wave that dashes upon the sea-shore stamps some new 
impression on the beach; so every commotion that 
stirs up human society develops some new element, 
thenceforth to act its part in the great social drama, 
until "the restitution of all things." 

The great revival of A. D. 1828 was fruitful in the 
development of many religious enterprises in Ken- 
tucky, prominent among w^hich was the raising up and 
organizing a new religious sect, known in its crude 
state by the appellation of "the Reformation," but 
adopting, from time to time, several names, as "Disci- 
ples," etc., and finally styling themselves " Christians," 
or "the Christian Church;" but as the latter name is 
of too broad a signification to apply exclusively to 
any one of the many sects claiming to be Christians, 
this sect is now, and probably will be during its future 
existence, known by the name " Campbellites," or " the 
Campbellite Church," after its celebrated founder, 
Alexander Campbell. Their peculiar system of doc- 
trines and practice is, consequently, recognized by the 
appellation of Campbellism. Writers have generally 



56 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

disclaimed intentional discourtesy in the use of an 
appellation distasteful to those who hold the system 
it distinguishes, but have claimed that there was no 
other appropriate term by which to designate it. 

The germ of what is now known as Campbellism 
was published in ^' a series of letters," addressed by 
Robert Sandeman, of Perth, Scotland, to Mr. Hervey, 
about A. D. 1757. He claimed that "justifying faith" 
is "the bare belief of the bare truth." His system 
is known in England as " Sandemanianism." In his 
WTitings he was exceedingly bitter against all oppos- 
ing doctrines, and particularly bitter and sarcastic in 
writing against 'the ministers of the Kirk of Scotland. 
He spent the last seven years of his life in New Eng- 
land, where, after organizing a few small societies, he 
died, at Danbury, Connecticut, A. D. 1771. His doc- 
trines seemed to die with him. But near A. D. 1800, 
Barton W. Stone (and others) began, in a confused 
manner, to hold forth the doctrine of Sandemanian- 
ism ; but, being unsuited for the work of a reformer, 
he made little progress, until Mr. Campbell, in his 
rapid changes from Hyper-calvinism to the extreme 
of modern Arminianism, embraced Mr. Stone's doc- 
trine, and added to it the doctrine that "baptism is 
essential to salvation." Mr. Campbell was, in name 
and church relationship, though certainly not in doc- 
trine, a Baptist. At first he seemed to have no defi- 
nite object in view, except to make a general onslaught 
on what he deemed the reliarious errors of the times: 

O 3 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 57 

but his mind was restless and unstable, and he soon 
conceived the idea of restoring the ancient gospel, 
which he supposed had been lost in the immense accu- 
mulation of superstition which had gathered around it 
during a period of eighteen hundred years. His first 
work in this great scheme was to tear down the mighty 
fabric of human error that had so long entirely ob- 
scured the " ancient gospel," to discover the original 
foundation and plan of the kingdom of heaven, and 
then build upon the sure foundation. With Sande- 
manian bitterness he attacked all human creeds, and 
denounced with the most bitter sarcasm all who upheld 
them. What he termed "the kingdom of the clergy" 
was the object of his most rabid hatred. Such a 
stream of bitter invectives, and wild, mad, sarcastic 
expletives as came from his pen, has probably never 
elsewhere found vent in the English language. The 
intense earnestness with which he applied himself to 
his great undertaking was certainly worthy of a noble 
cause. When the ancient gospel should be brought 
to light, it was to form a basis or platform upon which 
to unite all Christians in one body, and hence the 
innumerable evils of sectarian strife would be ban- 
ished from the earth: a state of things devoutly to 
be desired by all Christians. 

The first principle in this basis of union — not a new 
one to the Baptists certainly — was: The Bible is the 
only rule of faith and practice. All other creeds were 
to be destroyed, and the body of Christ was to be 



58 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

governed by ''the Book" alone. This was urged with 
as much earnestness as if it were impossible for men 
to disagree, in an interpretation of the Bible; but if 
they should happen to disagree, they were to walk 
together, nevertheless, in harmony and love. Pedo- 
baptists, Baptists, Calvinists, Arminians, Socinians, 
Universalists, Trinitarians, Soul-sleepers, and Hell- 
redemptionists were to form one harmonious body, 
"keeping the unity of the spirit in the bonds of 
peace." But this simple creed ("we believe the Bible 
to be true") must not be written ; for then it would 
become a human creed, and consequently a vicious 
superstition. The terms of admitting members into' 
"the kingdom" were very simple. Some one — proba- 
bly some superstitious creed-monger — has reduced it 

to this form : 

"The belief of one fact 
Confessed in one act." 

The "fact" to be believed was that "Jesus Christ is 
the Son of God." This was to be "a bare belief of 
the bare truth." Tom Paine believed "Jesus Christ 
to be the Son of God" in the same sense that all other 
men are the sons of God. Had he been so inclined 
he might have joined "the Reformation" on these 
terms, had " the Reformation" existed in his day, pro- 
vided he would keep his opinions to himself. The 
"act" in which faith was to be confessed was to "be 
immersed ... in the name of Jesus Christ, for the 
remission of sins." There was no provision made for 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 59 

a pious Presbyterian, -who miglit possibly believe that 
"the Book" taught sprinkling or pouring instead of 
immersion, however he might Avish to enjoy the uni- 
versal communion, and was willing to take the Bible 
alone for his creed. But, however absurd these simple 
doctrines might appear to a logical mind, aided by 
strong profession of love for the Bible, and great 
powers of sophistry, Mr. Campbell succeeded in de- 
luding into their acceptance many of the Bible -loving 
Baptists. Mr. Campbell spent much time in preaching 
and circulating the Christian Baptist, "a small, cheap 
periodical," through which he disseminated his views 
in Kentucky. Mr. Stone and his coadjutors gave 
their influence to Mr. Campbell's doctrine. Quite a 
number of Baptist ministers in Kentucky also im- 
bibed his sentiments. With his doctrines they also 
imbibed his active, turbulent spirit. 

During the great revival, A. D. 1828, they were 
exceedingly active in propagating their doctrines, es- 
pecially among the young converts. " The Reforma- 
tion" was still connected with the Baptist churches, 
and it seemed a part of their policy to remain as long 
as possible. At the close of the revival it was mani- 
fest that, in many churches in Northern Kentucky, a 
large majority of the young converts, as well as many 
of the older members, had become deeply infected 
with the new doctrine. The conservative, thinking por- 
tion of the Baptists, who had hoped all the while that 
they would be able to win back their erring brethren, 



60 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

and dreaded so formidable an irruption as would follow 
an attempt to exercise discipline, began to be alarmed 
at the rapid spread of what they deemed so dangerous 
an error. The elements of the doctrine of the Ref- 
ormation began to assume a more palpable form, and 
the whole theory of the new religion was so directly 
contradictory to the Baptist doctrine, that there was 
no longer a hope of reconciliation. It began to be 
manifest, also, that, instead of the broad catholicity 
Mr. Campbell had professed, the Reformation was 
really the most intensely sectarian of all the sects, 
and differed more widely from any one of the or- 
thodox denominations than any two of them differed 
from each other. It was difficult to meet with a single 
follower of Mr. Campbell's teachings, however learned 
or illiterate, who would confess the possibility of his 
being wrong in any particular. They "followed the 
Book in every thing," and "if the Book was right they 
were." 

According to their teaching, the Book required no 
interpretation. They " took it just as it read." How- 
ever alluring their hopes may have been, it began to 
be very apparent to ''the sects" that they would not 
very soon unite the Christian world on their platform. 
But instead of accomplishing the greatly desired end 
of uniting all Christians on the glorious doctrines of 
the Bible, they were manifestly adding another sect to 
the many already existing. 

If human language was so explicit that no word or 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 61 

sentence would admit of more than one meaning or 
construction, then the language of any people would 
need no interpretation for those who could speak or 
read it; but when a language like ours involves more 
or less ambiguity in almost every compound sentence, 
and often in a single word, it is difficult to find an 
elegant chapter in any book that several persons will 
understand exactly alike. But when we read a book 
in a dead language, equally ambiguous with our own, 
or a book written at a period when the manners, cus- 
toms, and mode of expression were widely different 
from those of the present time, agreement in interpre- 
tation is indispensable to agreement in what such a 
book teaches. This principle is fully justified in the 
w^ell-known fact that the best critics of the same re- 
ligious denomination have disagreed in the interpre- 
tation of almost every chapter in the Bible. The 
supposition, therefore, that the Bible, without any 
agreement in its interpretation, will give a harmonious 
faith to millions of men, of all grades of intellect and 
degrees of education, is a shallow presumption, suffi- 
ciently worthy, perhaps, of the conceited dogmatism it 
has begotten, but certainly unworthy of a man of Mr. 
Campbell's pretensions. Yet this is the foundation 
principle of his "Reformation," and the one in- defense 
of which he has expended so many furious anathemas 
against all human creeds. But this assumption did 
not prevent Mr. Campbell from becoming an inter- 
preter, nor his followers from receiving his interpreta- 

6 



62 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

tions with almost as mucli confidence as a papist 
receives absolution or extreme unction. In a .system 
of doctrines emanating from one mind, and that con- 
fessedly a great mind in some respects, we might rea- 
sonably expect to find some degree of harmony. In 
this we have not been wholly disappointed. 

The doctrine which involved the necessity of an in- 
finite sacrifice in order to the salvation of even one 
soul is denied, and it is assumed that men are not 
totally depraved. Much sarcasm and ridicule, and 
very little reason, has been expended in defense of 
this assumption. This view of man's moral nature 
being taken, the intrinsic value of the sacrifice of 
Jesus Christ is infinitely diminished, since it would 
require but little sacrificial merit to atone for a few 
overt transgressions, incidentally committed. Beside 
this, if there be no hereditary depravity in man's 
moral nature, there appears no sufiicient reason why 
some of them, at least, should not live without com- 
mitting sin ; and hence be justified without the sacri- 
fice of Christ. Furthermore, if the heart is not de- 
praved, it needs no change in its moral nature. A 
change of intention and action is all that is necessary, 
and this may be accomplished by the force of argu- 
ment alone. In entire harmony with this view, the 
necessity of divine power, or the operation of the 
Holy Spirit, in the conversion of a sinner is denied; 
for why should God do for men that which he has en- 
abled them to do for themselves? Hence, the Refer- 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 63 

mation embraced the doctrine that "the operation of 
the Holy Spirit is not necessary in the conversion of a 
sinner," and opened its potent batteries of ridicule 
against all who held a different doctrine. But if the 
sinner needed no divine influence in his conversion, 
there was no need of his praying for it. Prayer that 
neither expected nor needed an answer was, of course, 
a solemn mockery and a great sin. Therefore, that 
"a sinner has no right to pray" became a fixed 
article in the " no creed " of " the Reformation." 
This harmonious system of negations being estab- 
lished, a natural deduction was that "a sinner can at 
will become a 'Christian^ by his own voluntary act; 
provided, however, that he can find some ^reformer' 
who will immerse him." But if he can become a 
" Christian " at will, the logical conclusion, and hence 
another principle of the "ancient gospel restored," is 
that "a 'Christian' is liable to fall away at any time, 
and finally be lost." 

As this Avas a positive doctrine, which could not be 
sustained by "the Book," and would not admit so 
readily of the ordinary means of defense by ridicule, 
it became necessary to sustain it by example. These 
elementary principles sufficiently exhibit the theory of 
Campbellism. It unmistaka-bly claims salvation "by 
works of righteousness which we have done." These 
works of righteousness, at least so far as the means of 
attaining to a state of justification are concerned, have 
already been given. This is "the form of doctrine" 



64 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

that presented itself in many of the Baptist churches 
in Kentucky, as well as in other states, under the 
name of the Reformation, during the winter, spring, 
and summer of 1828. Such a state of affairs could 
not long exist. A separation between the real Bap- 
tists and the Reformers was inevitable, and the Bap- 
tists felt that, for the cause of truth and religion, the 
sooner the separation took place the better. 

Accordingly the Bracken Association, which met on 
the first Sunday in September of that year, passed 
a resolution that resulted in a separation. After a 
growing turbulence of several years, the churches now 
had rest and peace within themselves. But the civil 
war was only exchanged for a foreign war, that has 
already continued longer than the great Peloponnesian 
struggle. The Campbellites have been an active, zeal- 
ous, energetic people, and have accomplished much for 
their sect. Their doctrines are more generally known, 
and the future must determine whether or not they 
will bear the test of criticism, and, in process of time, 
be numbered among the orthodox denominations. Let 
all Christians strive to " contend earnestly for the 
faith once delivered to the saints — praying that truth 
may prevail and error fall." 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISIIER. 65 



CHAPTEP^ VIII. 

The wisdom of God is made manifest to men in 
the means he uses for the accomplishment of great 
ends. When there are great obstacles to overcome, 
and strong opposition to be met in the advancement 
of the divine purposes, the all-wise Creator prepares 
means suitable to the emergency. 

Whatever terms may have been used to express the 
theological views of the Baptists of Kentucky during 
the first quarter of the present century, the real sen- 
timent of a large number of their ministers was, that 
God would accomplish all his purposes irrespective 
of human agency; that he had unchangeably fixed 
the destiny of all things before the foundation of the 
world. The logical consequence of this doctrine was 
palpable enough to the most ignorant. Human effort 
could not thwart a divine decree; hence, all human 
efi'orts to convert sinners from the error of their ways 
were in vain, if not positively wicked. Satisfied of 
the truth of this feature in the divine economy, men 
were by no means disposed to spend their time, their 
labor, and their substance in the vain attempt to 
extend the kingdom of God, the boundaries of which 
had been definitely fixed before the world began, and 



66 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

to subvert his irrevocable decrees. To do so v^ould be 
" to kick against the pricks " — " to fight against God." 
The natural consequence was a strong opposition to 
all missionary enterprises. And Christians waited, 
with honest but sadly mistaken piety, for God to do 
what he had directly commanded them to do. While 
this was true, however, of a large number of Baptist 
ministers of the times, God had raised up a number of 
active, laborious ministers, through whose ministry he 
kept alive the churches, and led many souls to the 
fountain of life. 

The earnest labors of the devoted men of God, 
under the divine blessing, culminated in the great 
revival of 1828. Up to about this period, the Bap- 
tists of Kentucky had been divided in sentiment into 
two parties. The distinguishing doctrines of the inert 
party were denominated Hyper-calvinism ; those of the 
active party were called Fullerism. Both of these 
parties believed in salvation exclusively by grace ; that 
conviction, conversion, and sanctification were by the 
direct agency of the Holy Spirit; and that the com- 
plete salvation of the soul was independent of church 
ordinances. The greatest difi'erence between them 
consisted in opposition to all missionary enterprises 
by one party, and favoring them by the other. 
During the great revival referred to a third party 
was developed, known as the Reformation. This 
party has been treated of in the preceding chapter. 
The " Reformation " denied the direct operation of the 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 67 

Holy Spirit, and made the salvation of the soul de- 
pendent on the ordinance of baptism. At this time 
the Baptist denomination was divided into three 
parties (the Reformation at that time held connection 
with the Baptist churches), each contending earnestly 
for its peculiar doctrines. It was sufficiently apparent 
to an acute observer that parties so strongly opposed 
to each other in doctrine and practice could not long 
remain in one general union. Many earnest efforts 
were made to reconcile their differences, but without 
avail. A nominal union was effected between the 
Hyper-calvinists and Fullerites, but it was only nom- 
inal; and, after a few years of discordant strife, a 
formal separation took place. But each party con- 
tended, no less earnestly, for its peculiar doctrines. 
The Hyper-calvinists were eminently spiritual in their 
doctrines, but they rejected the use, in a great degree, 
of God's appointed means for advancing the claims 
of the gospel. Their influence was against, rather 
than in favor of, preaching the gospel to the unregen- 
erate. Indeed, many of their ministers openly refused 
to preach the gospel to unregenerate sinners, claiming 
that they were sent of God only " to feed the sheep ;" 
by which they meant that they were only authorized 
to preach the gospel to those whom the Holy Spirit 
had previously regenerated. A letter from Licking 
Association (Hyper-calvinists) to Long Run Associ- 
ation, in the year 1837, says: "We deny that it is 
the duty of unregenerate men to exercise that repent- 



68 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

ance which Jesus was exalted to give to Israel." 
Holding and practicing these doctrines, it is manifest 
that, instead of evangelizing a sinful race, they must 
soon perish, as a denomination, themselves. 

The Campbellite faction, though at first anti-mis- 
sionary in theory, were exceedingly active in propa- 
gating their doctrines. But they rejected what the 
evangelical denominations understand by the term 
spirituality of religion. So far as their doctrines are 
concerned, Christianity becomes devoid of spiritual 
life and destitute of divine power, and consequently 
becomes purely a rational exercise, consisting of a 
literal reception of and obedience to the written Word. 
If they succeed, it must be by human power alone. 

The missionary Baptists contended for a purely 
spiritual religion, began, carried on, and completed 
by the Holy Spirit, that the active presence of the 
Spirit might be felt and communion with him enjoyed, 
and that they might know that they had ^'passed from 
death unto life," by a correspondence of their emo- 
tions and afi*ection with the divine teachings. But 
they urged upon all their churches the duty of preach- 
ing the gospel to and praying for all men; and 
claimed that the quickening and illuminating influ- 
ences of the Holy Spirit, without which they could 
do nothing acceptable to God, enabled them to per- 
form these great duties. 

This was the condition of the Baptist denomination 
in Kentucky in A. D. 1835. For a number of years 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. G9 

weakened and embarrassed by a heartless, inert fatal- 
ism on one side, and a turbulent, factious rational- 
ism on the other, she separated from them both, at a 
cost of nearly or quite one half of her entire mem- 
bership. While these disturbances kept up, the Pedo- 
baptist denominations — and especially the Methodist 
and Cumberland Presbyterian — made rapid progress 
in the state. But at last, being disenthralled from 
her embarrassing factions, the Baptist denomination 
put forth that great energy that is a natural result 
of her doctrine and polity, and has, during the inter- 
vening thirty years, multiplied very rapidly. It has 
been before observed that God gave to the Baptist 
churches, about this period, a number of able evangel- 
ists, suitable to the work of building up her waste 
places. Prominent among them was the subject of 
this memoir. It is hoped that a description of this 
singularly great orator will be interesting to the 
reader. 

7 



70 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Every age of the world produces its great geniuses 
in the different avocations of human action, who rise 
up without antecedents, and pass away without suc- 
cessors. Israel had but one Moses for a legislator. 
Greece had but one Homer among the poets, one 
Demosthenes among the orators, and one Socrates 
among the philosophers. Rome had but one Caesar 
in war, one Cicero on the rostrum, one Augustus on 
the throne. Germany has had but one Charlemagne; 
Russia but one Peter the Great; France but one Na- 
poleon; Spain but one Cervantes. England has had 
but one Cromwell, but one Shakespeare, and but one 
Newton. America has had but one Washington, but 
one Franklin, but one Clay in the senate, but one 
Webster in council, but one Prentiss at the bar. Not 
that these were greater than all other men, but they 
were the world's geniuses; each one standing alone, 
and occupying a peculiar sphere that no other man 
could fill. Their greatness was traceable to no an- 
cestral superiority. They w^ere "new men," without 
antecedents; possessing all their greatness in them- 
selves, and carrying it to the grave with them, never 
again to be produced iu kind. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 71 

III' like manner there has been but one Fisher in the 
American pulpit. While it may not be claimed that 
he was the greatest of pulpit orators, it may be con- 
fidently asserted that he had no rival. He stood alone, 
occupying a sphere that nature's God had given only 
to him. He filled it for the appointed time, then left 
the stage to eternal silence. Like ^sop and Milton, 
he will never be reproduced. To those who did not 
see and hear him in the vigor of his strength, no de- 
scription can give an adequate conception of him. It 
requires the whole man, in the heated fervor of his 
great theme, to be seen and heard, to give a true idea 
of his oratory. The posture, the gesture, the counte- 
nance, the voice, the eye, the physiognomy, all take 
part in that most sublime of all human performances. 

Mr. Fisher was rather below medium height, of 
stout build, with a very large, full chest. He had a 
round face, slightly dished; a wide mouth; short chin; 
very light, grayish-blue eyes, rather small; light hair; 
a small, flat nose; had a fair complexion; a forehead 
of medium height, and a finely formed head. In the 
social circle, his countenance was mild and attractive; 
in study, serious and thoughtful ; in the pulpit, grave 
and impressive. He was severely pock-marked, which 
gave his face rather a rough appearance. He was 
a paragon of physical strength, and his power of 
endurance was equal to that of Napoleon I. It is 
said, by those who labored with him, that during the 
time he was engaged in protracted meetings he 



72 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

seldom went to sleep till near daylight in the morning ; 
and his wife, who sometimes went with him to his 
meetings, assured the writer that he did not sleep 
more than one hour in twenty -four during his en- 
gagement in a meeting. He sometimes labored six 
or eight weeks in succession, preaching from one 
and a half to two and a half hours at a time. 

This kind of labor engaged most of his time for 
a period of more than thirty years; and he was 
still a strong, active man up to the hour he received 
the fatal wound at the hand of the assassin. He was 
frequently heard to say, during the last year of his 
earthly life, '' I have been engaged in more than five 
hundred pitched battles, besides a great many skir- 
mishes;" by which he meant that he had labored 
through more than five hundred protracted meetings, 
besides preaching many incidental sermons. He also 
delivered many addresses on Masonry, temperance, 
education, and other subjects. Few men could have 
borne one fourth of the labor and privations that 
he endured; but God had a great work for him to 
perform, and He who in infinite wisdom adapts the 
means to the end he wills to accomplish gave him 
strength to bear it. 

What was said of Dr. Franklin may be truly 
said of Mr. Fisher: "In the social circle he never 
flagged, and never wearied those who listened to him." 
Among the erudite and elegant he led the conversa- 
tion with courtly ease and dignity. Amiong the illit- 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 73 

crate lie was eqiiall}^ at liome. AVhcther conversing 
with Clay or Adams of the United States Senate, or 
with a rustic lass or lad in a backwoods cabin, he 
displayed alike the social graces that nature had 
showered on him so profusely. He never seemed to 
know any grades in the social circle; adapting his 
conversation to the capacity of each one with whom 
he conversed with the readiness of intuitive percep- 
tion, he met the aristocratic nabob and the humblest, 
rustic with the same easy, respectful grace of manner. 
An illustrative anecdote is told of him to this effect : 
Some friends of Mr. Fisher were speaking of him on 
the street, when an old colored barber, who was near, 
said, with enthusiasm, "I like Mr. Fisher, because he 
always treats me with so much respect." In a letter, 
written by Elder R. L. Thurman a few weeks after the 
death of Mr. Fisher, the following extract refers to 
the social excellences of that 'great orator: "Socially, 
his qualities were of a high order, and wherever he 
went he had a large circle of friends, who admired 
and loved him. The writer remembers, with mournful 
pleasure, the last Christmas spent at his hospitable 
home, with some gentlemen friends. No one could 
have been with him that day without being impressed 
with his social excellences. His conversational powers 
were superior — often characterized by courtly dignity 
and beauty." 

This was one of the leading elements of Mr. 
Fisher's great success in the gospel ministry. Great 



74 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

as was the power of his eloquence in the pulpit, he 
probably exerted an equal influence over- those whom 
he labored to reclaim in conversing with them pri- 
vately. During the progress of his meetings he con- 
versed with every one he met on the great topic of 
salvation. On his part this involved no embarrassing 
hesitancy. He seemed to know exactly how to ap- 
proach every person he met, so as to engage his 
attention, without producing that awkward and un- 
pleasant embarrassment that so often confuses both 
the speaker and the listener. This is certainly a 
most valuable gift to a minister of the gospel. 
Preaching from house to house was an apostolic 
custom that is now too much neglected; and expe- 
rience teaches us that it is still essential to great 
success in lea.ding men to the Savior of sinners. 
Much experience has led the writer to believe that 
more men and women are induced to seek the Savior 
by private conversation than by public preaching. 
Let no minister of Jesus who would succeed in his 
holy calling neglect to cultivate his social powers. 

It will readily be inferred, from the vast amount of 
labor Mr. Fisher performed, that he was a man of 
tireless industry. He seemed to have been born for 
perpetual action. He was emphatically a living man. 
Labor did not seem to weary him. He read compara- 
tively little, but studied much. He read but few books, 
and probably was familiar with none but the Bible. 
He originated his own thoughts, and arranged his own 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 75 

language, which, like the mystic rituals of Masonry, 
were never committed to paper. In the early part of 
his ministerial career he was a very close student. 
Having made himself very familiar with the Bible 
while yet a mere youth, he carried its language into 
the secluded world of his own great genius, and there 
spent much time in evolving its great truths, and 
clothing them with that inimitable language peculiarly 
his own, with which, for hours at a time, he has held 
so many of his fellows spell-bound — enchanted. 

It has been shown that he began life very poor. 
People were accustomed to pay their ministers very 
little for preaching. It was necessary, therefore, for 
him to engage in some secular employment for a live- 
lihood. He engaged in various pursuits to this end — 
sometimes farming, sometimes conducting a school, 
and sometimes trading in live stock. In all these 
pursuits he evinced the same active industry and un- 
tiring energy that seemed to be, and really were, 
inseparable from his physical and mental nature. 
Such a man could not fail of success. Like Timon's 
ant, sixty-nine falls w^ould not prevent his making the 
seventieth effort. 

Mr. Fisher was a man of strong impulse, and pos- 
sessed very little of what men call prudence. He 
^spoke out what came into his mind without much cau- 
tion. He possessed unusually strong passions. If 
they never led him astray, it was a miracle of divine 
grace that restrained him ; if they did, he is account- 



76 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

able to his own Master. He loved his friends warmly, 
and spoke out his opinion of his enemies without hesi- 
tation. He was fond of getting money, even to a 
fault; but Avhen it was in his possession he set but 
little value on it, and spent it freely. He is said to 
have been very benevolent in his impulses, and could 
not resist an appeal from any one who was in want. 
His nature w^as to be unsuspecting; his friendship and 
confidence were easily won, and consequently easily 
betrayed; his resentment was impulsive and easily 
overcome. The same man might impose on him 
again and again. From this cause he frequently lost 
money by standing surety for irresponsible men. He 
doubtless had faults like all the rest of his race, but 
he w^as incapable of that low cunning and trickery 
called wire-working. His faults and virtues w^ere 
alike open and palpable to his associates. He was 
doubtless the subject of many foolish and far-fetched 
calumnies. To these he gave little attention, and 
seemed to have little concern in regard to what the 
world might choose to say about him. His answer to 
any evil report that reached him concerning himself 
w^as generally to about the following effect : ^' If I stop 
to trace up every slander the devil starts against me, 
I shall have little time to preach the gospel." He 
seemed to be destitute of the passion of fear. His 
bold, earnest opposition to popular vices, and the 
terrible invective and withering scorn with w^hich 
he rebuked their devotees, so incensed them that 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 77 

lie "Was frequently in danger of being assassinated. 
An incident, "^-liich occurred when he was holding a 
meeting in a small town in Tennessee, in A. D. 1835, 
will serve as an illustration. 

An infidel club had been organized in the village 
some time before he visited the town. As there was 
no meeting-house there, he preached in the court- 
house. The infidel club, in derision of the Christian 
ordinance, held a meeting in the market-house, at 
which time they partook of what they called the Lord's 
Supper. The elements they used were corn -bread and 
whisky. Mr. Fisher heard of this bold blasphemy, 
and in a sermon the next night he exposed it with 
such severity that the club determined to drive him 
away from the town or take his life. To carry out 
this purpose, they came to the meeting armed. As 
soon as Mr. Fisher learned their designs, he coolly, 
and with a steady earnestness that made them cower 
before the youthful minister of Jesus, replied : ^' Gen- 
tlemen, I came here to preach the gospel of the Son 
of God,, and if there were as many cannons under 
your control as there are bricks in this wall, belching 
forth their deafening thunders and iron hail, I would 
still remain here and preach it as long as there was 
hope of accomplishing good." They cowered before 
the majestic bravery of the young Christian hero, and 
retired from the contest, leaving the Christian master 
of the field to prosecute his glorious mission, which he 
did with abundant success. 



78 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISllKll. 

A few years after tliis, ^vliilc prcacliing at a little 
inland town m Kentucky, a man became violently 
oflended at his preaching, and pointed a pistol cocked 
at his breast; a lady sprang in between them to pre- 
vent his shootini^'. IMr. Fisher calmly said to the lady, 
"Do not be frightened, my sister; that man has not 
courage enough to stick a pin in me." Instead of 
discouraging liliu, the strongest opposition seemed 
to nerve and inspirit him Avitli increased zeal. He 
possessed tliat bold, elevated character of genius 
that rises far above the groveling of little minds, 
and independently marks out its own course, irre- 
spective of surrounding clamors, and, despising all 
meaner things, irresistibly moves onward to its ap- 
pointed destiny. 

There is something beautifully sublime in the char- 
acter of tliat man who selects -a Avorihy object for 
which to live, and independently pursues it in spite 
of every opposing influence, careless of the world's 
smiles or fi-owns, until it is accomplished. However 
men may joor him, strive to thwart his purpose, and 
ridicule and slander him, while lie steadily pursues 
the course he has marked out, they will wonder, ad- 
mire, :ind praise him when his object is* accomplished. 
Society neeils such moral heroes much more than it 
does mighty men of war. A few such men in every 
neighborhood would revolutionize the world before one 
generation wouhl pass away. Moral courage to resist 
a vicious public opinion, strength to overcome popular 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 79 

vices, philosophy to disregard popidar shmg and 
gossip, Avisdom to form a laudable purpose, and 
energy and perseverance to accomplish it, arc the 
noblest traits that human character can possess. 



80 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER X. 

" Theue is notliing new under the sun. That which 
is has been already." The whole sum of matter was 
created in the beginning. Fifty-eight centuries have 
added nothing to it nor taken any thing from it. '' In 
six days God created the world and all things that 
are therein." The steam that moves our machinery 
escaped unperceived from the dinner-pots of the ante- 
diluvians; the jewelry that adorns our apparel, the 
medicines that heal our diseases, the minerals that 
form our mechanical and a,gricultural implements and 
enrich the vaults of our banks, and the marble that 
commemorates the virtues of our fathers, lay buried 
in the cold, damp earth, beneath the feet of Cain and 
Abel; and the electricity that signals our thoughts 
to distant lands telegraphed from the clouds the ap- 
proach of the flood. The earth brought forth its quota 
of plants and peopled itself with its catalogue of 
animal tribes; the sea gathered the sum of its waters 
and peopled its depths with its quantum of fishes and 
creeping things; and man walked forth with all his 
physical, moral, and mental attributes perfected, king 
and lord of earth's whole treasury, before God " rested 
on the seventh day from all his works." Man has 



LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHER. 81 

received no new power or faculty. The difference 
between men is like the difference between calomel 
and corrosive sublimate, consisting only in different 
proportions of the original elements. All men there- 
fore (not deformed) possess exactly the same elements, 
faculties, and powers. Hence the greatness of one 
man above another consists in the greater develop- 
ment or proportion of those faculties which he pos- 
sesses in common with all his race. 

That which pre-eminently distinguished Mr. Fisher 
was the wonderful power of his imagination. In early 
life he recognized that charming gift of heaven, and 
became fascinated with it. He prized it as the miser 
does his gold, and nursed it as the young mother does 
her first-born. It became his mental idol, and to its 
hallowed shrine he brought the wealth of many long 
years of ardent study, and it richly rewarded his de- 
votions. He expressed his admiration of this enchant- 
ing faculty of the mind, and exhibited its wonderful 
power in his inimitable sermon on "the worth and 
immortality of the soul," in language of something 
like the following purport : 

"Another faculty of the soul is imagination. It is 
the only attribute of the mind that imitates its Creator. 
It alone of all the faculties possesses power to create. 
It has created for pagans a host of gods, who stand 
sentinel to guard their virtues and become executioners 
to punish their crimes; to transform their heroes into 
luminous stars and. plant them in the heavens; and 



82 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

change their cowards into fiends and confine them in 
the gloomy hell of Pluto. It chained Prometheus to 
the cold Caucasian rock, and sent vultures to prey 
forever on his self-restoring vitals. It placed Tantalus 
in clear, bright waters up to his chin, and surrounded 
him with rich, tempting fruits, and doomed him to the 
perpetual agony of intense, unappeased thirst and 
insatiated hunger. What can it not do? With it I 
can carve out of the Alleghany Mountains a colossal 
statue of Washington, holding in one hand the con- 
stitution of his country and in the other Bunker Hill 
Monument; and in the name of this mighty republic, 
bidding defiance to the armies of the world, with it 
I can rear a tree with a trunk of iron, limbs of brass, 
leaves of polished silver, and apples of burnished gold, 
studding the wide vault of heaven. This fearful power 
will add infinite terrors to the lost soul in hell, and 
bestow inconceivable delights upon the redeemed spirit 
in the home of the blessed. Its grasp is as broad as 
the universe, and its duration as endless as the years 
of God." 

What a beautiful world he must have lived in when 
he withdrew his mind from external objects, and 
reveled in the imaginary magnificence of his own 
creation! To create and destroy at will; to meta- 
morphose the most extravagant fable into a vivid 
reality; to surround ourself with the blooming love- 
liness of the primitive Eden; to wander amid myriads 
of diamond-bespangled islands, clothed in ever-bloom- 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. «d 

ing shrubbery of surpassing loveliness, and sulFused 
by the soft, mellow light of a milder sun, and inhab- 
ited by a race of beings more mild and lovely than 
angels are; to transform the rugged, barren earth into 
the most beautiful conception of heaven, and walk 
with angels among the diamond thrones of light in 
the world of fadeless glory, is the happy province of 
a living imagination. Let no one despise so noble a 
gift. It is the mirror in which is feebly reflected the 
beauties and glories of the future home of the chil- 
dren of God. Let no one fear that the picture will 
be overdrawn. God is a greater creator than man. 
When the most extravagant imagination has exhausted 
its resources in painting the glories, beauties, and joys 
of heaven, it will then fall far below the reality; for 
God is greater than the strongest imagination, and 
will do for us far greater things than we are able 
to ask. 

Amid the ever-changing uncertainties of mortal life, 
where no beauty is fadeless, no good satisfying, no 
joy permanent, and where even life itself is jeopard- 
ized every hour, it is an exalted privilege to be per- 
mitted and capacitated to dream of heaven. As a man 
traveling in a foreign land can not look upon his home 
and the faces of his wife and children, and he finds 
not the social pleasures among strangers that his heart 
yearns for, he prizes the privilege of looking at their 
pictures; or, not having these, he takes pleasure in 
retirement, where he can call up in his imagination 



84 LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHER. 

the pleasing picture of his distant home, the familiar 
form of his loving wife, and the cheerful faces of his 
little ones. So the careworn spirit on earth, ever 
seeking in vain for rest and happiness among the toils, 
disappointments, and sufferings of mortal life, loves 
to picture out the peaceful, happy home that it hopes 
to inhabit when its earthly sufferings shall close. Let 
no one then undervalue that refined and elegant 
quality of the mind that enables him to contemplate 
those beauties and joys which are yet invisible and 
unexperienced, nor despise or envy those to whom 
God has given the power to set before us in brilliant 
colors these heavenly blessings, for which our souls 
so earnestly long. 

A striking characteristic, in which the strongly 
marked individuality of Mr. Fisher appeared, was the 
great strength and force of his language. His whole 
vocabulary seemed to have been selected and arranged 
for the discussion and contemplation of great themes. 
When he undertook to describe the ocean in a storm, 
the grandeur of Niagara Falls, or the fury of a violent 
thunder-storm, he appeared easy and at home. When 
he described the splendor and glories of heaven, or 
the confusion, disorder, and terrors of hell, he arose 
to an awe-inspiring sublimity perhaps never before 
equaled in the annals of extemporaneous oratory; 
but when he came to converse on light subjects, he 
appeared, to a stranger, wild and extravagant, and 
even ludicrous. Such was the character of his Ian- 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 85 

guage when conversing on trifling or common-place 
topics, that his hearers were startled with the feeling 
that he was bordering closely on profanity. His mind 
dwelt on great themes, and sought for words and ex- 
pressions in which to convey great thoughts and strong 
impressions to a public audience, till he seemed to for- 
get the disproportion of great words to small ideas. 
Being asked how he was progressing in a protracted 
meeting in which he was engaged some years since, he 
replied without hesitation, " Very slowly : gospel truth 
has no more effect on Christians here than the beak of 
a gnat on the rind of a rhinoceros." Without being 
intended as such, this was a strong exaggeration. He 
only meant that his preaching was having very little 
effect on the people at that place. But such was his 
vocabulary and the character of his mind, that he 
seemed to have no words in which to express it. His 
contrasts in comparison v^ere often so extravagant as 
to lose their force and become ludicrous. During his 
first debate with Mr. Clark, which took place at West 
Point, Kentucky, in the summer of 1839, he was 
asked by a friend how he was progressing with his 
arrangement of the argument. He replied promptly, 
" I have an argument so strong that Clark had as well 
attempt to pick down the pyramids of Egypt with a 
cambric needle as to try to overturn it." When he 
spoke of human souls so small that five hundred of 
them might be colonized on the point of a cambric 
needle, or so diminutive and hard that a thousand of 

8 



86 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

them might be put in the hull of a tobacco seed and 
be heard to rattle when it was shaken; or when he 
represented a lukewarm, stupid prayer, or a dull, prosy 
song, as being '^ cold enough to freeze hell over a mile 
in extent;" or a task as difficult as plowing up the 
adamantine floor of ^'hell with a pine shingle geared 
to a bob-tail rat;" or a class of men so obnoxious to 
the Almighty that "if hell were so full of reprobates 
that their feet were sticking out at the dormer-win- 
dows, God would still make room for an infinite num- 
ber of them;" the intelligent listener could not but 
feel that he was in the presence of a master genius, 
whose strange, wild extravagances, almost bordering 
on profanity, were as much to be avoided as his won- 
derful powers of mind were to be coveted. But these 
and similar expressions from him were less harsh be- 
cause they seemed to be with him easy and natural, 
and he never appeared to know that he had said any 
thing extraordinary. 

It has been intimated in a preceding chapter that 
the development of Mr. Fisher's oratorical powers was 
very rapid. He probably reached the zenith of his 
greatness in less than five years after his ordination 
to the gospel ministry. This, however, is a common 
law of brilliant genius; it always ripens early, and 
commonly decays rapidly. For this reason (its early 
maturity) it is always a dangerous possession. It 
is like keen-edged tools in the hand of an awkward 
child, or a strong, spirited horse driven by a feeble. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 87 

unskilled boy. Solomon assures us that aged men are 
not always prudent, and experience and observation 
have proven to us that a young man is very seldom 
prudent; hence, fame is as likely to be abused, in his 
hand, to his own injury, as is a sharp knife in the 
hand of a child, and he is as likely to misdirect great 
power as an awkward lad is to drive astray a spirited 
horse. When it is further added that men of brilliant 
genius seldom attain to a sound, judicious discretion at 
any age, the truth of the old adage, that " genius is 
oftener a curse than a blessing," may be the more 
readily admitted. 

How many brilliant young minds has every intel- 
ligent observer known to bloom, like the early peach- 
tree, only to be blasted before any fruit was formed? 
Such are usually men of strong passions, little sta- 
bility, and inferior judgment; but a mitigating circum- 
stance is, that in a worldly sense of that term tJtey 
are seldom bad men at heart. Because of these natural 
elements of weakness many of them fall victims to 
their appetites and passions, while comparatively few 
are saved from the vices to which they are peculiarly 
exposed. 

Mr. Fisher, while yet a boy, sought the strength 
and protection of divine grace — the only safeguard 
to young men amid the strong temptations that sur- 
round them in mortal life. He early entered'into that 
great work for which nature's God seemed to have 
especially designed him. He labored in it with a zeal 



88 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

and energy worthy of his high calling, and devoted 
himself to it with a constancy and earnestness that 
showed his heart to be in it. The years that so many 
young men devote to idle pleasures and trifling amuse- 
ments, he gave to preparing for and laboring in the 
gospel ministry. He was licensed to preach at twenty 
years of age ; and^ fully authorized and accredited by 
a presbytery of senior colaborers and his church, he 
entered into the ardent labors of his high calling at 
twenty-two. He entered the pulpit as poor as the 
poorest, but with high commendations, and, so far as 
can be ascertained, a spotless character. For two 
years, encumbered by no domestic ties, he devoted 
himself to preaching, with great zeal and activity, and 
his labors were crowned with abundant success. 

But to give a connected history of all his labors 
would take many volumes. Only examples and illus- 
trations of his labors, successes, and brilliant power 
can be given in this little work. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISIiER. 89 



CHAPTEH XI. 

"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the 
man shouhl be alone; I will make him an helpmeet 
for him." Whatever may be the condition or occupa- 
tion of ar^man; whether his calling be holy or secular; 
however abstracted from the grosser cares of mortal 
life, or absorbed in mental or spiritual labor ; however 
he may crucify the lower passions of his nature, and 
rise to a higher development of spiritual life, he is 
still a social being, and needs a closer relationship of 
love and confidence than can exist between him and 
his race in general. To soften the rougher features 
of his nature, to refine the coarser phases of his man- 
ners, to smooth and soften the very current of his 
thought, he needs the mild, gentle influence of a wife. 
A man can no more be a perfect man without a wife 
than he can without a hand or an eye. They were 
created male and female in the beginning, and the 
perfection of either requires that the twain become 
one flesh. "The woman was made for the man" be- 
cause he had need of her. He was made to love as 
certainly as she was made to be loved. A man needs 
to love not only his Creator and his neighbor, but a 
wife who will fully appreciate and return it. When 



90 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISIIEll. 

wearied and careworn from labor and suffering and 
disappointment, he needs the sympathies of a tender, 
loving heart — a heart undivided, and all his own; 
when he is afflicted with deep sorrow, he needs a 
sincere, feeling heart to weep with him. The cold 
pity and formal condolence of lukewarm friendship 
at such a time but adds another pang to his overbur- 
dened heart. Only a heart whose every pulse beats 
in unison with his own can bear a portion of his grief 
and relieve the bitter anguish of his soul. When ad- 
versity robs him of former friends, and slander and 
reproach follow his misfortunes, he needs one trusting 
heart to believe him faithful and innocent, and one 
kind voice to cheer and encourage him in his de- 
spondency. When prosperity crowns his labors with 
success, and the hope of his toil is realized, his joy, 
no less than his sorrow, asks the sympathy of a fond 
heart. Man needs too a closer correspondence of hearts 
than the conventional form of etiquette or the common 
laws of prudence will admit between any but husband 
and wife. Confidants and bosom friends, when faithful 
to their sacred trust, relieve the heart of many cares 
and lighten many of its burdens, as well as support 
and increase many of its joys; but every heart has 
many little secrets that the most confidential friend 
does not and ought not to know. 

Only a wife can be admitted into the husband's 
heart as freely and familiarly as she enters into her 
own closet. He freely opens to her all its chambers, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 91 

and slie gently, softly enters into its sanctum sanc- 
torum,, tenderly removes what is unseemly and bur- 
densome, and fills the vacancies with fadeless flowers 
from the exhaustless treasury of her love. Often 
as she waters her flower -pots, often as she fills 
her parlor vases, often as the dews of heaven distill 
upon her garden, she softly glides into his thoughts 
and afi"ections, attunes with the mild tones of her 
voice, caresses with the gentle touch of her hand, 
waters with the silent sympathy of her tears, and 
lights with the golden radiance of her smiles ; and 
when sickness comes, when the strong, manly frame 
is prostrate and helpless, when fierce, violent pains 
rack the body, and the wild, fevered dreams of de- 
lirium torture the mind, she softly glides to his bed- 
side, gently lays her cool hand on his fevered brow, 
patiently listens to all his complaints, mildly and 
steadily looks into his restless eyes, and inspires him 
with confidence and patience until half his sufl'erings 
are stolen away. Her sickness has none the less a 
hallowed influence on him. When her cheeks grow 
pale and thin, her eyes look larger and more brilliant, 
and her little white hands become more thin and at- 
tenuated, his whole nature seems to have been trans- 
formed. His love is tender and more spiritual; his 
sympathy is more constant and watchful; he is more 
charitable and compassionate. He is not awkward 
and clumsy now, but tender and skillful as a woman. 
She readily appreciates all his attentions, and still 



92 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

more the feelings that prompt them. They mutually 
forgive and forget all past derelictions, and she is 
almost glad she is sick, since it has been the means of 
showing to her such riches of love and devotion in her 
husband. She is happier and he is better than in the 
days of her blooming health. 

But when they are both well and strong, and bat- 
tling with the great world in its busy strife in their 
appropriate spheres, the husband needs the wife as 
much as she needs him. His nature requires a home; 
not merely a cold, cheerless house, but a home, no 
matter how humble, how poor, where the hand of love 
arranges his couch, his chair, and his wardrobe, and 
presides at his board. When engaged in his calling 
among friends or strangers, or when traveling in a 
foreign land, he needs the idea of a real home, whose 
life and light is a loving, faithful wife, whom he can 
love now even more tenderly than in her presence. 
She is a remembrancer of his duties and a guard over 
his virtue and , piety. He wrestles with God for her 
welfare more earnestly than he prays for any other 
earthly object. His last evening thought is of her, 
and his first morning prayer for her safety and hap- 
piness. When his labors are done, her love is the 
gravitation that attracts him away from idleness and 
vice. Surely ''it is not good that the man should be 
alone.'' 

Notwithstanding Mr. Fisher's great zeal and activity 
in the labors of his holy calling, he had been regularly 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 98 

engaged in his great work but two years before lie 
began to recognize the need of a companion in his 
labors. Accordingly he sought and obtained the hand 
of iMiss Elizabeth Naylor, daughter of James Naylor, 
Esq., of Greensburg, Kentucky. He was married by 
Rev. John Howe, a Presbyterian minister, in October, 
1836. This union was blessed with an only child, 
born about seven years after the marriage of her 
parents. She is now one of the intelligent and ac- 
complished young ladies of which Kentucky makes 
so proud a boast. As Mrs. Eisher is still living, 
scarcely beyond the years of mid-life, it would be 
improper to say more her'^ than that she has been a 
faithful, devoted, and affectionate w^fe, and that she is 
a sadly-bereaved widow, and a noble Christian mother. 
Next year after his marriage Mr. Fisher settled near 
Greensburg, Kentucky. He has since that time lived 
at various points in Central Kentucky. Although he 
has owned valuable real estate in different localities, 
he has never lived long at one place, but moved from 
point to point, seeking a more convenient locality 
from which to carry on the great w^ork of his life. 
He could not remain still. He labored under the 
great commission — " Go, . . . preach the gospel ;" and 
faithfully he carried it out. It is probable that no 
man has ever labored in more protracted meetings or 
met with greater success. 

9 



94 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Mr. Fisher's energy and industry secured success 
in almost every thing he undertook, and with his great 
intellectual power and social qualities he might have 
gained a wide reputation, either in the forum or at the 
bar, or acquired a fortune in the capacity of a business 
man. The energy, industry, and talent he expended 
in the gospel ministry would have given him a high 
position in almost any calling. But, like Moses, "he 
chose rather to suffer reproach with the people of God 
for a season" than to enjoy the honors and riches of 
the world. 

But his calling and adaptation were not only to 
the work of the gospel ministry, but manifestly to 
an especial department of that work. He spent but 
little time in the pastoral relation, but enough to 
satisfy himself and others that he was not adapted 
to that position. The circumstances of his life and 
the peculiar order of his talent indicated his especial 
work to be that of conducting protracted meetings. 
This required much labor and great powers of en- 
durance. We have seen that, from a naturally strong 
and vigorous constitution, his early training developed 
these qualities in an eminent degree, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 95 

He professed religion during the great revival from 
which protracted meetings took their origin; he en- 
tered the pulpit just as they were being generally 
introduced; the rapid development of his oratorical 
powers gave him speedy preparation for the work; a 
few months' experience proved his eminent qualifica- 
tions, and unprecedented success opened a w^ide field 
for him to labor in. At the age of twenty -five he was 
among the greatest revivalists of his day. From that 
period until his death he was probably solicited to do 
more labor than ten men could have accomplished. 
He held meetings in Baltimore, Maryland; Wash- 
ington, District of Columbia; Richmond and Lynch- 
burg, Virginia; at several points north of the Ohio 
River, from Pennsylvania to Missouri ; and at different 
points in almost every state south of the Ohio. But 
the largest portion of his labor was performed in his 
native state. 

When he set the time to commence a meeting;, he 
used all proper means to get the people together; 
assured that if they did not come to hear him he 
could exercise no influence over them. Where he 
was known his reputation as an orator would fill 
almost any church-house. But he always took much 
pains to have his appointments as widely circulated as 
circumstances would permit, and he seldom failed to 
have large congregations. He went to his appoint- 
ments confidently expecting success; but he did not 
wait idly or indifferently for success to come to him, 



96 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

but immediately put into use all tlie means that God 
gave him. He looked to God alone to perform all 
the spiritual work, and expected nothing to be accom- 
plished in the Avork of salvation but by the direct 
influence of the Holy Spirit. But he taught that 
God required not only his chosen ministers but all 
his children to use all the means he had given them 
in his service. He was emphatically a man of much 
prayer. He not only prayed much during the hours 
of public worship, but spent much of his time during 
the intervals in secret prayer, and in praying from 
house to house. He soon became so much interested 
and absorbed in his work that he either could not or 
would not take the time to sleep. He spent nearly 
the whole of the night in meditation and prayer. 
" Often during the night," said a minister who labored 
with him, ''have I known him to get up and kneel 
down by his bed, and pray for such as had asked him 
to pray for them, frequently calling them by name." 
He talked to and prayed for every one who gave 
him an opportunity to do so. A little incident that 
occurred at Elizabethtown while he was holding a 
meeting there, some years ago, will illustrate this 
characteristic of the great revivalist. 

After he had preached one night he said to elder 
George Hicks, who was in the pulpit with him : " I am 
very tired; let us go to our room and rest, while we 
leave the brethren to close up the meeting." Mr. 
Hicks assented, and they walked a square or two to 



LIFE OF TIIOxMAS J. FISHER. 97 

the residence of Hon. Samuel Hay craft, where they 
were stopping during the meeting. It happened that 
Mr. Hay craft had a raw Irishman, hired to work for 
him at that time, who entered the room with an arm- 
ful of wood to put on the fire about the time Mr. 
Fisher and Mr. Hicks came in. 

"Do n't you want to be a Christian?" said Mr. 
Fisher. 

" Yis ! " hissed the Irishman through his teeth. 

"Well, don't you want to be prayed for?" 

"Yis!" 

"Let us pray," said Mr. Fisher. 

"We knelt down there among the sticks of wood," 
says Mr. Hicks, " and I have never in my life heard a 
more fervent and eloquent prayer than Mr. Fisher 
offered up for the salvation of that Irishman." 

Mr. Fisher was peculiarly eloquent in public prayer. 
He prayed as if he felt that he was in the immediate 
presence of God, and he, like Moses, w^as talking to 
him face to face. No one could listen to him at these 
periods of his fervent pleading with the Almighty 
without feeling deeply awed. An intelligent physician, 
living in Hardinsburg, Kentucky, at the time Mr. 
Fisher lived there, used to say: "Mr. Lightfoot has 
been three times so near the gates of death that he 
must have died either time if it had not been for 
Mr. Fisher's prayer; but no man could die while 
such prayers were being offered up for him." The 
eloquence of his prayers, though couched in good 



r^ 



98 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

language, did not consist so much in the structure 
of sentences as in the earnest fervor with which he 
prayed. When he went to God with a petition, he 
seemed, like Job, to "come even to his seat" and fill 
his mouth with arguments. He plead as if he felt 
that he must die if his prayer was not answered, and 
yet with the apparent confidence of one Avho expects 
no denial. ''I have never seen such faith in any 
other person," said his wife (who often accompanied 
him to his meetings in the earlier years of his min- 
istry) ; " he never seemed to doubt that his prayers 
would be answ^ered." A strikins; instance of this oc- 
curred when he held a meeting in Tuscaloosa Count}^, 
Alabama. He made his homiC at the house of a Mr. 
Hodges, whose brother, Benjamin Hodges, had been 
for several years a hopeless drunken sot. Ben came 
to his brother's about the time the meeting began — 
drunk, as usual. He had drank so much that he had 
become desperate, and had several times attempted to 
cut his ow^n throat. Mr. Hodges had no hope of 
Ben's recovery from his disgrace and debauchery, and 
was much annoyed at his coming to his house at that 
time, feeling that he would only be in the way. This 
he freely expressed to Mr. Fisher by way of apology 
for any annoyance Ben might give him. "You ought 
not to talk thus, brother Hodges," said Mr. Fisher, 
"let us covenant together to pray for him, and God 
will convert him before this meeting closes." They 
joined hands in confirmation of this covenant. In a 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 99 

few days, at most, Ben Hodges suddenly ceased from 
drinking whisky, never again to be drunk. The Holy 
Spirit took possession of his heart. He made a public 
profession of the religion of Jesus before the meeting 
closed. His suddenly quitting the use of whisky 
caused him to fall very ill; but his soul was so full 
of gratitude to God for saving him from so hopeless 
an estate, that he persisted in obeying the Savior in 
being baptized immediately. Accordingly he was im- 
mersed at the close of the meeting, notwithstanding he 
had sixty grains of calomel in him at that time. He 
soon recovered his health, and became a pious and 
useful preacher of the gospel. 

Mr. Fisher not only prayed almost incessantly day 
and night himself during a protracted meeting, but he 
used every laudable means within the scope of his 
ability to induce all others, both converted and un- 
converted, to pray constantly. That "an unbaptized 
sinner has no right to pray " was to him an exceeding 
distasteful and heretical dogma, and he did not fail to 
use his intimate acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures 
and the great power of his eloquence to confute it. 
All his meetings were emphatically great prayer -meet- 
ings w^hen he could have them such. His first effort 
in a meeting was to induce the people to engage in 
earnest, faithful prayer. If he could succeed in this, 
he seldom or never failed to have a thorough revival 
of religion and many souls converted to God. Dull, 
formal prayers he could not tolerate. He seemed to 



100 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISIIEE. 

fully appreciate the evil tendency of men's making 
long, stupid prayers, in which, in a cold, indifferent 
manner, they asked for every thing they could think 
of or had heard other people ask for, without expect- 
ing to receive any thing. He would not unfrequently 
cut short such prayers by crying out in a loud voice 
''Amen — sing brethren!" He would sometimes re- 
buke a brother for offering a prayer of this kind, 
which he regarded a solemn farce, in no mild terms. 
"Ask for what you want here and now; ask in ear- 
nest, expecting to receive it, and quit as soon as you 
have done," was the sum of his teaching on this sub- 
ject. He desired every act of public worship to be 
earnest, pointed, and brief. 

He w^as not content with having his congregation 
engaged in earnest, constant prayer, but he urged 
them to engage "in every good word and work" of 
which they were capable. He desired that there 
should be no idler in the house of God, and espe- 
cially among professors of religion : first, because his 
labors were needed; secondly, because no one could 
enjoy religion in idleness; and thirdly, because an 
idler was in the way of others. 

Mr. Fisher studied men much more than he did 
books, and hence had an excellent acquaintance with 
human nature. He rather quaintly remarked (per- 
haps in his debate with Mr. Franklin): "I have read 
the wonderful book of human nature in various bind- 
ings; sometimes [bound] in calf, sometimes in sheep, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 101 

but much oftener in do2:.'' lie seemed to understand 
a man's disposition, humor, and capacities almost as 
soon as he looked at him. Like Cyrus, of whom it 
has been said, perhaps ^vith considerable exaggeration, 
that he could call the name of every soldier under his 
command, Mr. Fisher took much pains to learn the 
names, habits, and conditions of his whole congrega- 
tion. These circumstances gave him great skill in 
marshaling a congregation into appropriate spheres 
of labor. Of the great advantages wliich this gave 
him he did not fail to avail himself, not only infusing 
his own active, zealous spirit into the regular attend- 
ants upon his ministry, but calling into requisition the 
labors of casual visitors. This may be illustrated by 
the following story, related by Elder "William Head, of 
Webster, Kentucky, who was, at the time it refers to, 
pastor of the church at Cloverport, Kentucky, where 
the incident occurred: 

Mr. Eisher had been eno;ao;ed in a meetino: at this 
point several days, when, after preaching one night, 
he discovered in the cono;reo;ation a strano-er, who 
seemed to be taking a very active part in singing, and 
seemed to be enjoying the meeting very happily. He 
was a small, stoop-shouldered man, with long hair 
coming down to his shoulders, and was shabbily 
dressed in a faded green coat, with sleeves and skirt 
very short, and a coarse, half-worn pair of pantaloons 
girded around his hips, and lacking two inches of 
reaching up to the bottom of his homespun, checked 



102 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

cotton vest, and about as much of reaching down to 
his large, rough cow-skin shoes, while he held on his 
lap a small seal-skin cap, with all the hair worn off 
the crown. To the casual observer his appearance 
was by no means promising ; but Mr. Fisher seemed 
to measure his capacities at a glance. He immedi- 
ately stepped up to the stranger, and with that inde- 
scribably bland and pleasing manner, w^ith which he 
never failed to put at ease and gain the confidence of 
the listener, said: ''Don't you pray?" 

^'Yes, sometimes." 

When the song closed Mr. Fisher said: "Let us 
pray, while our strange brother will lead us." 

Immediately the congregation knelt down. Mr. 
Fisher knelt near the " strange brother," and by 
hearty or rather boisterous responses so excited the 
stranger that, forgetting to close his prayer formally, 
he got up on his feet and went off into a stormy ex- 
hortation while the congregation were on their knees. 
As soon as he closed his exhortation, Mr. Fisher again 
stepped up to him, and said : " Do n't you preach, 
my brother?" 

" Sometimes," was again responded. 

"Our strange brother will preach for us in the 
morning," said Mr. Fisher. 

As they went home that night, Mr. Head said to 
Mr. Fisher: 

"Do you know this stranger?" 

" Ho is a good brother," said Mr, Fisher. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FlSliEll. 103 

^'But ^vlio is he?" 

" 0, lie is a good brother, from out here in the 
country." 

Mr. Head could obtain no further information, sim- 
ply because Mr. Fisher knew no more of him than 
he did. 

Next morning at the appointed hour the "strange 
brother" read a text of Scripture, and delivered a 
"warm, spirited exhortation. The congregation was 
pleased with "the sermon," and Mr. Fisher announced 
that he would preach again the next morning. But 
the next morning came and the fire had all gone out; 
the "strange brother" made a total failure. 

Mr. Fisher saw that his work was done, and felt 
that for him to stay any longer would be an injury 
to the progress of the meeting. Mr. Head, the pastor 
of the church, perceived this also. But how to get 
him away without wounding his feelings was a ques- 
tion that must be left to the ingenuity of Mr Fisher, 
who is said never to have been at fault in any emer- 
gency. The renowned orator was not long in devising 
a plan. As soon as the strange brother had concluded 
his effort to preach, Mr. Fisher said : " Let us go down 
(out of the pulpit) and have a season of prayer." He 
led in prayer himself. Solemn, earnest, eloquent, as 
if, like the peri at the gate of paradise, he were look- 
ing through the half-opened portals of heaven into the 
very face of the Anointed One, were his appeals for 
divine blessings on the church, on the mourners at th6 



104 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

altar, and on sinners in the congregation. He closed 
with a petition for the strange brother to something 
like the following purport: 

"0, Lord, we thank thee that thou hast sent our 
strange brother among us; that his heart has been 
made to rejoice, and that his labors have been blessed. 
And now, Lord, he is about to leave us. Send him a 
good boat and give him a prosperous journey. Be 
with him wherever he goes, and prosper his labors to 
the glory of thy name." 

Just as the prayer closed a steamboat whistled, a 
signal that she would land. The strange brother rose 
from his knees, with tears streaming down his cheeks, 
bade the brethren a cordial but hasty good-bye, hurried 
on board the boat, and has probably never been seen 
or heard of at Cloverport since. 

As they walked home from church, Mr. Head said : 
" Brother Fisher, had that man said any thing to you 
about leaving?" 

^'No," said Mr. Fisher. 
/'How did you know he was going?" 

"Ah," replied Mr. Fisher, " I 'm an old war-horse ! " 

Mr. Fisher's tact in the management of unfortuitous 
circumstances was by no means the least remarkable 
among his happy traits of character. It is said that 
he never was nonplused by any incident that occurred 
in any of his meetings ; but he often turned to advan- 
tage circumstances that would. have embarrassed and 
confused almost any other man. This trait is happily 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 105 

illustrated by the anecdote related above. Many others 
of equal force might be related, but a few others of the 
most striking must suffice at this place. 

When the old First Baptist church edifice in Louis- 
ville was completed, Mr. Fisher was invited to hold a 
protracted meeting in it. This was probably in the 
winter of 1837-8. About the third night of the meet- 
ing Mr. Fisher made one of his happiest efforts, in the 
presence of an immense congregation. 

When he closed his sermon, he came down on the 
floor, and invited any who desired the prayers of the 
church to come to the altar, while the congregation 
should engage in singing a hymn. When the singing 
was commenced, a drunken man, probably in accord- 
ance with a plan previously arranged by some wild 
young men, rose up at the further end of the house, 
and, staggering along the aisle the whole length of the 
audience-room, seated himself at the altar of prayer. 
The lamented John L. Waller and Elder William C. 
Buck were standing near the pulpit. 

''What shall we do, Waller?" said Mr. Buck. "No 
one else will come forward for prayer with that 
drunken fellow here." 

"I do not know," said Mr. Waller; "we will leave 
it all to Fisher. I do not know how he will manage 
the case, but I know he will do it right." 

Mr. Fisher was exhorting and talking to the people 
so busily that he did not observe the man's coming 
forward. He discovered his sitting there, however ; 



106 LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHER. 

and, stooping down to speak to him, ascertained that 
he was drunk, just as the song closed. Without a 
moment's hesitancy he raised up, and said, in a clear, 
strong voice : '' Sing another song, brethren." 

As soon as the song was started, he stooped down, 
and, shaking his fist near the fellow's face, said, in a 
low, suppressed tone : 

"You trifling, drunken rascal, if you don't get up 
and leave here I will have a policeman here in fifteen 
minutes, and have you sent to the workhouse. Leave 
here, sir!^' 

The frightened drunkard got up and started out, and 
Mr. Fisher cried out, with a loud voice: "Make room 
there, brethren, and let this whisky-barrel roll out ! " 

The singing was stopped. " And," said one of the 
audience, " such a speech as Mr. Fisher delivered on 
human depravity for about half an hour I have never 
heard elsewhere." 

The circumstance gave a new impetus to the meet- 
ing, and the result was an extensive revival and many 
additions to the church. 

A gentleman, who was converted to Christianity at 
this meeting, recently related to the writer the fol- 
lowing incident : Mr. Fisher was riding from Eliza- 
bethtown to Shepherdsville in September, 1837; when 
he was near the latter village, on Sabbath morning, 
he met some gentlemen who were going out on a 
fishing party, and among them a prominent lawyer. 
(This was no uncommon circumstance at that time.) 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 107 

As soon as he came near them he cried out : " Stop, 
gentlemen, stop, and go back to town -vvith me, and I 
will tell you something you never heard in your lives." 
They turned around and went back to the village. 
Mr. Fisher rode up to the tavern, gave his horse to 
the hostler, and asked the tavern-keeper to have the 
court-house bell rung immediately. In a short time a 
large congregation w^as collected. Mr. Fisher went 
into the court-house and preached to them. He con- 
tinued preaching here from day to day for several 
weeks, during which time near one hundred persons 
professed religion, seventy-eight of w^hom were im- 
mersed and became members of a Baptist Church at 
that place. 

Mr. Fisher's powers of sarcasm, retort, and satire 
were very keen, and when he chose to use them they 
were always felt. He took no pleasure, however, in 
using them wantonly. On one occasion, while preach- 
ing a sermon on temperance, a man in the congrega- 
tion, who is supposed not to have been very temperate 
in his habits, became so incensed that he determined 
to whip him as soon as he came out of the meeting- 
house. According to this arrangement he posted 
himself near tl*e door, and waited with apparent im- 
patience for the coveted combat. As soon as Mr. 
Fisher made his appearance, the angry man ap- 
proached him, and said : " Mr. Fisher, you have in- 
sulted me to-day, and I intend to whip you for it 
right here!" 



108 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

Mr. Fisher assumed an oratorical manner, and re- 
plied as follows: "You whip me? Sir, if you were 
lying dead in yonder old field, and a turkey-buzzard, 
soaring around in the aerial heavens above you, were 
to discover you and come down, he would not defile 
his beak by putting it into your bloated and polluted 
carcass ! " 

Mr. Fisher calmly w^alked away, and his antagonist 
was denied the privilege of a fight. 

Like Martin Luther, Mr. Fisher seemed to feel that 
he had a perpetual contest with the devil, especially 
while he was directly engaged in trying to advance 
the kingdom of Christ. He supposed the influence of 
Satan to be the great barrier in the way of success in 
every meeting he engaged in. He was an earnest be- 
liever in, and advocate for, the truth of spiritual influ- 
ence. Whatever good was accomplished was gratefully 
ascribed to the influence of the Holy Spirit; hence the 
great earnestness and constancy Avith which he prayed 
and urged others to pray. His teaching was, that with 
all our prayers, and preaching, and exhortation, and 
persuasion, our eiforts must be wholly unavailing ex- 
cept God make them efficient by the power of his holy 
spirit. He ascribed all adverse circumstances and evil 
influences to the devil, Avhom he seemed to regard as a 
constant attendant at all places where the children of 
God assembled. Violent opposition in his meetings 
always seemed to encourage him. He would say: 
"We are going to have a glorious revival. The 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 109 

devil sees that his cause is in danger and is getting 
mad about it." An instance of this kind is said to 
have occurred at Elizabethtown, while he was engaged 
in a meeting at that village, in A. D. 1837. His 
scathing denunciation of gambling had given great 
offense to some young men addicted to the exer- 
cise of that polite accomplishment. There were no 
special indications of success in the meeting; the 
church was probably becoming discouraged, and the 
incensed young men determined to break up thp 
meeting. Accordingly, w^hen the congregation had 
assembled at night, and before preaching was com- 
menced, one of the polite conspirators "cast the 
first stone" through the window into the meeting- 
house. In an instant Mr. Fisher sprang to his feet 
and cried out, "Glory to God! Hallelujah! The 
devil is mad ! We are going to have a glorious re- 
vival ! There will be a hundred conversions ! " That 
night he held the audience spell-bound with the won- 
derful powers of his matchless eloquence for the space 
of nearly two hours. The meeting continued, from 
day to day, without further interruption, until more 
than one hundred persons professed faith in the Lord 
Jesus. 

A brief account of a meeting Mr. Fisher held at 
Burksville, Kentucky, A. D. 1856, will further illus- 
trate his eminent skill in overcoming difficulties. 
Some time previous to his visiting that village, a 
Baptist minister had moved there and constituted a 

10 



110 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

cliurch, consisting of himself and wife, and one or 
two others. For some reason he became very un- 
popular, and the community refused to recognize his 
church or attend on his ministry. On his arrival at 
the town he learned this state of affairs, and readily 
perceived that his labors with the interdicted church 
must prove a failure. He therefore refused to recog- 
nize it as a church, and commenced his meeting in 
the court-house, in direct opposition to the resident 
preacher, who was a man of very considerable ability. 
His great eloquence soon procured for him the ear 
of the people, but his meeting did not prosper as he 
desired, and he naturally enough conceived that the 
influence of the resident minister was against him, 
and that this influence must be counteracted, or his 
efforts at that point would prove a failure. The means 
readily suggested itself to his fruitful mind, and ac- 
cordingly he related from the pulpit the following 
story, the scene of which he located in the village of 

B , in Virginia: 

A protracted meeting was in progress at B . 

The members of the church were all heartily co-oper- 
ating with the preacher except Deacon Jones. The 
deacon was a correct, honest, and benevolent man, and 
heartily desired the prosperity of religion and the 
good of the church. No member filled his seat in the 
church more promptly, or was willing to make greater 
sacrifices for the cause of religion, or prayed more 
readily for the good of Zion; but the plans of opera- 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. Ill 

tion never suited him ; the preacher did not suit him ; 
the meeting came on at the wrong time, and was im- 
properly conducted; there was too much excitement 
among the people ; and the doctrines preached were 
not . sound. In short, none of the enterprises of the 
church suited him. For this cause he gave the church 
and preacher a great deal of trouble, and embarrassed 
them in every thing they undertook. There was a 
shrewd infidel in B , who had observed the dea- 
con's course, and one morning during the progress of 
the protracted meeting he amused himself by admin- 
istering the following quaint rebuke : 

Intentionally placing himself in the deacon's way, 
he assumed a very grave, sad countenance. The 
kind-hearted deacon, noticing his grave look, ob- 
served: "You look sad this morning." 

" I have cause to feel sad," responded his friend. 

"What is the matter?" inquired the deacon. 

"I had a strange dream last night, and I can not 
shake off the dreadful impression it made on my 
mind." 

" Pshaw ! " said the deacon ; " a dream means noth- 
ing. But what was it ? " 

"I don't like to tell it." 

^'Why?" 

" You arc connected with it, and I fear it will give 
you offense." 

"No danger," replied the deacon. "Let us have 
it." 



112 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

"Well, if you will promise not to be offended/' said 
his friend, "I will tell it.'' 

''I promise," said the deacon. "Go on.'^ 

*'Well," commenced the infidel, "I dreamed last 
night that I died and went to hell. The devil called 
me to him and asked me where I was from, 

"'I am from the village of B- — — , in Virginia/ 
said I. 

"'What is going on there?' said his majesty. 

" ' Nothing new/ said I, ' except a protracted meet- 
ing.' 

"'Are they doing any thing?' said he, with much 
interest. 

"'Yes/ said I; 'several have professed religion, 
and two or three others came up for prayer last 
night.' 

"'Then I must go at once and stop it/ said he. 

" He hastily drew on his overcoat^ and was tying on 
his wrappers, when a new thought seemed to strike 
him, and, turning to me again, he inquired: 'Is 
Deacon Jones there?' 

"'Yes.' 

"'Attending the meeting?' 

"'Yes.' 

"'Then/ said he, smiling and taking off his over- 
coat and wrappers, 'I need not go; he can do ten 
times as much as I could.' 

" At this point I awoke, but I have felt very sad 
ever since." 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 113 

This story had the desired effect. The congregation 
at once recognized Deacon Jones in the resident min- 
ister, and his influence against the meeting became 
powerless. 

The meeting at Burksville continued two or three 
weeks, during which time, if tlie number is rightly re- 
membered, between thirty and forty persons joined 
the church, or rather were constituted into a church, 
after being baptized. Among these was Alford King, 
a prominent lawyer, who had for a number of years 
been a member of the Campbellite Church. He at 
once commenced preaching, and soon became a useful 
minister of the gospel. 

Mr. Fisher loved the great work he was engaged 
in as a mother loves her first-born. He was inspired 
by a lofty ambition to excel in his holy calling. He 
seemed to yearn with intense desire to be instrumental 
in leading multitudes of dying men to the cross of 
Christ. "Behold the Man," was his watchword, as 
well as his favorite text. He was eloquent on any 
subject to which he gave his attention, but he never 
seemed so completely at home, under any other circum- 
stance, as when he held up before a sinful race the 
reeking cross of the Son of God. He aspired to be 
a successful laborer in the Redeemer's kingdom, and 
pursuant to this aspiration he labored with indefati- 
gable energy and perseverance to attain to it. He 
spent more time in the public worship of God than 
almost any other man of his age ; and there probably 



114 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

has not lived a man in modern times wlio more 
thoroughly devoted all his power, both of "body 
and spirit," to the great work while he w^as engaged 
in it. 

When he engaged in a meeting, he held his mind to 
the great scheme of redemption as a man perishing 
with cold holds tinder to the focus of a sun-glass; 
and Avlien his soul was fired with the glory of the 
divine arrangement of redeeming love, he labored in- 
cessantly to supply it with fuel, lest the flame should 
be extinguished. He ceased not to pray, day and 
night, lest the Holy Spirit, to whose power he ascribed 
his only hope of success, should leave him. Like 
Jacob, he wrestled all night for the coveted blessing. 
He would not sleep, lest his spirit should grow stupid 
and indifferent. He labored perpetually to keep all 
the poAvers of his heart and mind living and active. 
He seemed to anticipate and prepared for every emer- 
gency, and never failed to meet it promptly. 

During his labors he nursed his ''gifts and graces" 
as a young mother nurses her infant. He praised God 
aloud for every intimation of the divine favor, and 
immediately gave him the glory for every indication 
of success. No labor was too hard for him, no toil 
too incessant. He shrank from no hardship or re- 
sponsibility, nor shunned any danger. He entered 
upon his labors, expecting no failure, and prayed for 
blessings, anticipating no denial. He sought for op- 
portunities to labor with dying men for the salvation 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 115 

of their souls as the thirsty hart seeks for the cooling 
waters of the flowing brook. Who can wonder that 
he succeeded beyond all precedent in modern times? 
In his own oft-repeated language, " to God be all the 
glory!" 



116 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

When Mr. Fisher had received his ^'five talents/' 
he did not " wrap it up in a napkin ;" but '' he went 
and traded with the same, and gained other five 
talents." Surrounded by circumstances every way 
unfavorable in early youth, he formed the design of 
spending his life in preaching the gospel. In the use 
of all the means within his grasp, which were scant, 
indeed, he strove to prepare himself for this specific 
work. He studied the Scriptures as the great means 
of human salvation, and human nature that he might 
know how to apply the means. In the technical lan- 
guage of the schools, he was neither a scholar nor a 
theologian. He possessed a general knowledge — suf- 
ficient for his purpose — of history, science, and 
general reading, but was by no means thorough in 
any of these branches. He knew but little of the 
dead languages, and in the study of the Bible itself 
he gave very little attention to curious and difficult 
questions and speculations, or nice technicalities in 
theology. With a naturally strong, comprehensive 
mind, and a very retentive memory, he scanned the 
general departments of learning, and, like the load- 
stone, which, being passed over a heap of filings, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. . 117 

gathers up all the fragments of steel, he culled out 
and retained whatever would subserve his purpose. 
He was neither profound nor logical, and least of all 
metaphj^sical. He made himself familiar with the 
language of the Bible, the plain precepts of its teach- 
ings, and the general theory of religion, and his great 
power consisted in a forcible application of these to 
the hearts and minds of his audience. 

Mr. Fisher was a speaker, but not a writer. He 
could write a fair article for a newspaper, or a respect- 
able address or eulogy; but in this he did not excel. 
He had so great a repugnance to using a pen that he 
usually employed an amanuensis, even in writing brief 
private letters. All his manuscript writings that he 
had in his possession at his death would probably 
make less than fifty pages in an octavo volume, and 
most of these were written in his early life. He 
delivered many masonic, educational, and eulogic ad- 
dresses (two or three of which will be appended to 
this little volume), and delivered many temperance 
speeches, which were well received; but for the full 
scope of his giant powers he needed -the loftier theme 
of the Christian religion. 

As may be readily conceived of one of so active 
and brilliant a mind and such intimate acquaintance 
with the Scriptures, he could take any plain text and 
preach a fair discourse without any previous prepa- 
ration. But he did not depend on his genius or 
general knowledge. When opportunity was offered, 

11 



118 LIFE OF THOiMAS J. FISHER. 

he made very thorough preparation. It is believed 
that he never wrote but one sermon, and that vfas a 
funeral discourse written in early life. He had but 
few sermons. Among his papers were found the 
notes of less than thirty, and he had probably less 
than a dozen in which he greatly excelled. His desire 
was to preach well and successfully, rather than to 
exhibit a great variety. His principal sermons, which 
were peculiarly his own in thought, style, and compo- 
sition, he delivered hundreds of times ; often by special 
request delivering the same sermon twice to the same 
congregation during one series of meetings. 

In his preparation for pulpit labors, it was manifest 
to a close observer that Mr. Fisher embraced three 
principal points : the preparation of his sermons, the 
preparation of himself, and the preparation of his 
audience. In preparing a sermon he selected a text, 
and deduced from it his subject. This he divided into 
(usually three) propositions ; each of these • propo- 
sitions was sustained by several minor propositions. 
This was all that he wrote in his notes, except that 
he appended to the minor propositions references to 
appropriate illustrations. This done, he studied the 
arrangement, clothing it in that sublime strength and 
beauty of language that no one else has ever been 
able to imitate, during the remainder of his life, or 
until he supposed it was as perfect as he could make 
it. But the manner of its delivery was no less im- 
portant than the language in Avhich it was couched. 



'LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHER. 119 

The empliasis, intonation of voice, the appropriate 
expression of countenance, and the gesture must be 
suited to the sentiment. This was a matter of no 
ordinary importance. The judgment of hardened and 
sin-blinded men must be convinced, and their proud, 
stubborn hearts must be moved to humility and re- 
pentance, or their deathless souls must be forever lost. 
Carefully and minutely, however, as were his sermons 
studied and prepared, he always left room for the in- 
troduction of any useful thought that might occur to 
him during the fervor of their delivery, or any strong 
or beautiful expression that might be born of his 
brilliant imagination during its sublime flights of 
living fancy. 

Several times during his ministry did Mr. Fisher so 
mortify his' body, and excite his mental and emotional 
powers, that he was thrown into brain-fever, greatly 
to the peril of his life. To feel, with all the intensity 
that the human frame can bear, the passions inspired 
by the spirit of the glorious gospel, is indeed the 
highest qualification for preaching that gospel. To 
love God (in the highest attainable degree) as the 
Son loved him ; to love dying men with Him who " SO 
loved the world;" to pray with that spirit that said, 
"Father, forgive them, they know not what they do;" 
to yearn for the salvation of sinners as Christ yearned 
over Jerusalem; to weep over suffering humanity as 
"Jesus wept" at the grave of Lazarus; to feel as did 
Peter when he said, " It is good for us to be here ;" 



120 LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHER. 

and to have the assurance that said, "we know . . . 
we have a building, a house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens;" is not only the best prepa- 
ration for preaching the gospel that can be attained, 
but the highest and purest joy that an earth-clad soul 
can feel. No wonder that a faithful minister, like the 
father of the chosen tribes, should wrestle for it all 
night till the break of day. He who enters the pulpit 
with these feelings can scarcely fail to honor his Mas- 
ter and benefit his hearers ; who enters it without them 
is likely to fail of both. 

Mr. Fisher, who seemed never to forget or neglect 
any means of success, used all available means in 
preparing his audience to receive the gospel. His 
diligence in getting a congregation together has been 
already remarked. He met with them, expecting the 
divine blessing. Wherever he went he anticipated 
" a glorious revival." He strove to animate his con- 
gregation with the same confidence, and to infuse 
into them his own boundless faith. He set them an 
example of earnest, constant prayer, and urged them 
with much argument and persuasion to follow it. He 
prayed for the Spirit of God to be among the people 
with intense fervor and earnestness. He strove to 
disengage their minds from all worldly engagements 
and topics, and to direct them to the contemplation 
of religion and its rich promises. Gradually he led 
them from their worldly occupations to the cross, and 
from their worldly pleasures to the sublimer joys of a 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 121 

holy religion. When their hearts were warm with the 
love of God, and their souls yearned for the fuller joys 
of salvation — when the Christian counted over the un- 
failing promises of God, and contemplated, with a feel- 
ing hope and living faith, the glorious blessings and 
fadeless joys that awaited him in heaven — when the 
sinner pondered over in his mind the certainty of 
approaching death, the horrors of eternal punishment, 
and the hopelessness of a lost soul, and began to in- 
quire how he might obtain the Christian's inherit- 
ance — then were his preparations for preaching the 
gospel with unsurpassed eloquence and effect ■ fully 
made. Then, if he turned pale and trembled as he 
entered the sacred desk, and his soul whispered, "I 
know that God is with me," he never failed to chain 
his audience to the cross, and enchant them with its 
decayless charms. 



122 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER Xiy. 

Music! Indescribably sweet harmony of enchant- 
ing sounds! Gentle love-tones of Nature's voice, 
wooing the heart from its grosser thoughts and more 
sordid cares to the refined delights of its holiest pas- 
sions ! In its softest, mildest cadence, like heaven's 
gentlest zephyrs playing over the crystal waters of 
the river of life, it ripples the springs of love's 
fountain of the human heart with those enchanting 
thrills that virtuous maidens feel when honored lovers 
print upon their cheeks the virgin kiss of love. In its 
bolder, wilder strains it stirs the martial ardor of the 
blood, and makes it leap with lightning speed along 
the veins, and kindles in the soul the fires of war. 

Poetry! Living thoughts of rapture! Sweet in- 
stinct of the soul of genius! It tunes the harp of 
ardent lovers to its softest seolian strain. It sets the 
finer passions of the soul on lambent flames of love 
and hope, and bears it up on wings of softly-breathing 
sighs to brighter regions of the holy blessed. 

Painting ! Breathing shadow of beauty ! Disem- 
bodied soul of nature! It woos the soul, with silent 
language, through the mild, enraptured eye, and lifts 
the pure emotions of the heart from nature up to 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 123 

nature's God. It kisses from the rarest flowers of 
poesy their fairest shades of light, and breathes them 
into souls refined, as dews distill from heaven to gem 
the blushing rose of May. 

Song! Offspring of music and poetry! Universal 
instructor! Luxury of men and angels! Acceptable 
offering to the ear of God ! Refiner of the spirit most 
refined! It thrills with holy joy the souls of young 
and aged. It mingles pearls from soft, bright eyes 
with dews upon the cheek of youth, and moistens 
with happy tears the hoary beard of aged sires. It 
leads the careworn spirit from its present woes back 
to the brighter days of youthful love, or, further still, 
to childhood's sunny hours, where beauty, light, and 
hope, and mother's love made up the richest treasure 
earth can ever yield — a treasure much too near akin 
to heaven to bide with mortals when their innocence is 
gone. When interwove with Christian hope and faith, 
its purest strain and highest theme, it bears the en- 
raptured soul away from earth-born cares, to mingle 
with the holy congregation of the blessed around 
the throne of God! 

But oratory! Richest, sublimest gift of nature's 
God! Treasured elements of all physical, moral, and 
mental perfections! It is the "living soul" of the 
highest type of human genius. It is music, poetry, 
painting, and song. It is the power nearest the 
throne; it controls the multitudes at will. It is the 
quickening influence, next to the spirit of life. It 



124 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

breathes upon the dead passions, and they live. It 
resurrects buried hatreds ; rekindles smoldering loves ; 
lights again the extinguished fires of war; recovers 
from the raging conflagration the olive-branch of 
peace; allures the multitudes to debasing revelry, or 
leads to the elevated contemplation of truth and 
virtue. 

Glorious, fearful gift ! " See ! I have made thee a 
god!" Glorious, beyond earthly comparison, when its 
vast powers are consecrated to the development of 
purity and virtue, and, above all, when it exerts 
its wonderful influence in leading a fallen race to 
the all-cleansing fountain of redeeming love; but 
strangely fearful Avhen it hurries, still more rapidly, 
the doomed multitudes down to the gates of endless 
death. 

Mr. Fisher's highest natural excellence was the 
wonderful power of his oratory; or rather his ora- 
tory — and especially his pulpit oratory, in which he 
peculiarly excelled — was a concentration of all the 
gifts of his richly-endowed mental and moral organ- 
ism. So diff'erent was the style of his oratory, in 
almost every particular, from that of all his cotcmpo- 
raries, that it will not admit of comparison. It was 
simply great in itself. His thought, his figures, his 
structure of language, and his manner of delivery 
were wholly original, and peculiarly his own. 

In the pulpit he always appeared completely at 
home. No one who observed him there could doubt 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 125 

that's being liis appropriate sphere. He entered the 
sacred desk with graceful ease and entire self-posses- 
sion. He never manifested the least embarrassment 
in word or action, or exhibited any excitement, except 
that he is said to have been paler than his natural 
color when he was more than usually impressed with 
his subject. Perhaps a slight tremulousness was ob- 
servable also at such times. This he attributed to the 
influence of the Holy Spirit aiding him in his great 
work. When he rose to his feet, he stood firm and 
erect, and it was usually remarked that he made a 
very fine appearance in the pulpit. 

In nothing, perhaps, did he excel more than in his 
gestures. They did not seem to be studied, but ap- 
peared to speak to the eye almost as naturally and 
forcibly as his lips spoke to the ear. The following 
incident will illustrate the force and appropriateness 
of his gestures: 

"He was preaching to a very large audience in 
Owensboro, Kentucky," said one of his hearers, "in 
the spring of 1862. His subject was 'the worth and 
immortality of the soul.' To illustrate the power of 
remorse, he related this circumstance : 'At a crowded 
hotel,' said he, ' I was compelled to room with a man 
who, some years before, had taken a fellow-man's life. 
When he commenced undressing to go to bed, he took 
a revolver from his pocket with his right hand, and 
laid it on the table. He then took another revolver 
from another pocket, and laid it by the former, with 



126 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

his left hand.' As he related this circumstance," con- 
tinued the hearer, "he moved his hands, first the right 
and then the left, from the breast of his coat to the 
book-board, so naturally that he fastened on my mind 
the impression that he had actually laid two loaded re- 
volvers on it, with the muzzles pointing toward the 
audience. This impression was so firmly fixed on my 
mind that, notwithstanding he preached one of his in- 
imitable sermons, nearly two hours in length, I could 
not shake it ofi". And every time he moved his hand 
toward the book-board I involuntarily cringed, for fear 
that he would knock the loaded revolvers down on to 
the floor among the audience." 

Such was the perfection of his gestures that the 
eyes of his audience followed his hands as naturally 
as their minds did his words, and such was the force 
and beauty of their silent eloquence that a blind man 
must have lost half the grandeur of his oratory. 

None who saw him while he was making one of his 
happy oratorical efforts could longer wonder why the 
Roman and Grecian orators took such great care to 
perfect their gestures, nor that the orations of Demos- 
thenes and Cicero produced such wonderful effects 
upon their enraptured audiences. 

"0, that I could paint a dying groan!" said an 
enthusiastic artist while trying to draw a picture of 
Death. But his skill failed him, and he experienced 
the mortification of knowing that those who looked 
upon his painting would fail to appreciate the beauty 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 127 

of his design, for want of ability on his part to exe- 
cute it. An attempt to describe the voice of this 
strangely gifted orator -svould result in a similar fail- 
ure. Pollok, in his description of Lord Byron, says: 
"He touched his harp and nations stood entranced!" 
It would be much less extravagant to say of Mr. 
Fisher that he spoke and the multitudes were spell- 
bound. His voice was not peculiarly soft. Nature 
never makes so great a mistake as this. It would be 
about as harmonious to speak his language in a low, 
soft tone as it would be to accompany the singing 
of Homer's Iliad with a guitar, or that of Milton's 
"Paradise Lost" with a banjo. The great author of 
his physical perfections formed his vocal organs in 
harmony with the superior strength and dignity of 
his mental structure. There was an indescribable 
something in the peculiar tone of his voice that im- 
mediately arrested the attention of all within its scope. 
The first word he would utter after rising up in the 
pulpit would still an audience as if the whole congre- 
gation were enchanted. Certainly no mean element 
of this fascinating power was the unrivaled clearness 
of his enunciation. He never spoke hurriedly. Not 
only every word and syllable, but the sound of eve»y 
letter, was enunciated with clearness and deliberation. 
He gave to language its full strength and beauty by 
presenting it to the ear with all its perfections. 

Notwithstanding a general verdict to the contrary, 
Mr. Fisher was not technically an ornamental speaker. 



128 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHEK. 

He pre-eminently excelled in the use of bold, strong 
figures, but they were simply figures without orna- 
ment. For example, in a sermon delivered at Bards- 
town, Kentucky, a few months before his death, he 
used this sentence: "Prophecy, literally speaking, is 
the foretelling of future events; figuratively, it is the 
bow of God's promise, with one end resting on the 
earth and the other pouring its light on the sapphire 
thrones." Here the metaphor is very bold, but it is 
wholly naked. One end rests upon the earth; there 
is no drapery, no surroundings to attract the attention. 
An ornate speaker would have surrounded its base 
with the sin-cursed sons and daughters of men weep- 
ing in despair, or groaning under the oppression of 
pain and disappointment; and its apex with seraphic 
hosts hovering on golden wings about the flashing 
thrones, and chanting raptured praises to the God of 
promise. The "bow" would have been lost in the 
confusion of the contrasting scenes, and the original 
idea would have disappeared before it had made an 
impression. The other end was shedding its natural 
light on the sapphire thrones. This simply sustains 
the connection of the "bow" with the dignity and 
glory of its Author. The simple, bold figure is clear 
and conspicuous, and the audience see it, feel it, and 
remember it. The maxim, "the less is said the more 
is understood," is not without truthful application in 
very many striking instances. 

In a sermon before referred to, delivered at Owens- 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 129 

boro, occurred substantially the following passage : 
^'Sinner, look at that woman standing on the border 
of heaven, with a smiling countenance, and her long 
white dress comins; down to her feet. That woman is 
your mother ! " With that strange, magnetic power 
with which he led the minds of his audience into every 
avenue of thought and feeling whither his own pre- 
ceded, he had brought them to an exclusive contem- 
plation of whatever scene he presented to them. This 
picture, therefore, was simple and natural. The 
woman was the object to be contemplated. She was, 
therefore, a looman^ not an angel. The ground on 
which she stood was simply heaven. There was no 
ornamental description; no brilliant, attractive sur- 
roundings; no poetically shaded landscape in the 
background. She was clad in no fantastic or un- 
natural dress; no star-gemmed crown w^as on her 
head; no extravagant wreath of strange flow^ers en- 
circled her brow; no brilliant, flashing robe fell in 
graceful folds to her feet ; no ponderous harp of gold 
encumbered her; she was engaged in no unnatural 
strain of singing; she was simply a woman, smiling 
from inward joy and satisfaction, and clothed in a 
decent white dress. She was the listener's mother, in 
the sweet, peaceful enjoyment of heaven. Every one 
of the audience could see her as if she had been 
standing before their natural eyes in real flesh and 
blood. Every listener who had lost a mother could 
see her in the woman described, living again, in the 



130 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

enjoyment of health and peace, as in the happy days 
of yore, removed from the cares and sorrows of mortal 
life ; but still his own mother, smiling on him with love 
and tenderness, as in the bright, happy hours of the 
long-ago. 

In his sermons, Mr. Fisher probably never advanced 
a new theory or strange doctrine. Wonderful as was 
the power of his imagination, he never invented a re- 
ligious theory ; but in all his teaching he confined 
himself principally to the plain, fundamental doctrines 
of the Bible. His inventive genius, which was very 
great, exerted itself in discovering new modes of ex- 
pression, new combinations of language, new and bold 
figures of speech, and new manner of delivery. In 
these consisted his rare originality; but they, in a 
difi"erent manner, applied to old and well understood 
doctrines. Bishop Bascom claimed for himself that 
degree of originality that entitled him to the credit 
of " a separate witness." Mr. Fisher was certainly a 
sepaTate witness, but he only testified the same facts 
that thousands of others had borne witness to before. 
This, however, was one of the elements of his great 
success. He taught those doctrines to which the great 
mass of the people had already given their consent. 
He had only to enforce those doctrines in such a man- 
ner as to produce positive conviction and lead to ac- 
tion. He presented, in living forms, those truths that 
had before appeared shadowy and indistinct, and made 
his hearers feel what they had before only given a 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 131 

tacit consent to. He taught as if he believed with 
all his heart what he was teaching. 

In the delivery of a sermon, he presented the doc- 
trines he conceived to be contained in his text, or 
naturally deducible from it, clearly and briefly, but 
enforcing them with elaborate illustrations and strong, 
bold metaphors. His descriptions were brief, but very 
clear and striking. When his mind was clear and 
active, he seemed to feel the full force of every thing 
he said, and see, as clearly as with his natural eyes, 
every thing he described. As he advanced with his 
subject, his strong passion kindled into a rapt fervor. 
He never became violent or hurried, but his soul 
seemed to glow with an intense, steady heat, like a 
great furnace. Such was the magnetic power of his 
fervent passions that the feelings of his audience kept 
pace with his own, until he drew them away from all 
external objects, and they became wholly under his 
control. They appeared to lose their identity, and 
become one body, animated by his mind and controlled 
by his will. They thought as he thought, saw and 
heard what he saw and heard, and believed what he 
believed. He led them from one thought to another, 
and from one object to another, as passively as the 
father leads about his little child. A stranger, coming 
in during one of his lofty flights, might have been 
disgusted, and called it extravagant bombast; but the 
congregation he had led along with him received it as 
living, visible truth. They saw it with his eyes, and 



VS'I LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

believed it with his mind. ^'The control which he 
exercises over an audience," writes a gentleman from 
Mobile, ^'is truly wonderful. Sometimes you feel his 
influence over you to such an extent as to control 
respiration, and you breathe as he breathes, or as he 
gives you permission." 

Thus brought under his entire control, he held them 
subject to his will, and impressed upon their minds the 
great truths of religion with such power that they 
might never escape from their demands. The hard- 
ened gospel-slighter, the benumbed debauchee, and the 
jeering skeptic, alike felt the power of his burning 
eloquence. As he unrolled before his audience the 
brilliant panorama of his richly-stored mind, now illu- 
minated by the fire of his burning passion, they beheld, 
one after another, the magnificent groups of truth and 
beauty that lived and breathed at the magic of his 
touch. If he wished to impress them with the cer- 
tainty and nearness of approaching death, with im- 
pressive solemnity he pointed them to a dying bed, 
and they in a moment beheld the pale face, the husky 
gasping for breath, the dying agony playing over the 
distorted countenance, the sunken, glazed eyes from 
which the light had fled forever, and the dews of death 
gathered upon the cold marble brow. He leads them 
to the open grave. The pale, cold clay of mortality 
is exhibited for the last time. The coffin is gently 
low^ered into the vault. "Earth to earth, and dust to 
dust," comes, in low, sad tones, to the ears of the 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 133 

mourners. The damp clods rattle with lower and 
lower muffled sound, till an oval heap of clay rises 
over the buried dead, and the silent friends, with tear- 
bedewed cheeks, move slowly away. " Man dieth and 
wasteth away; yea, man giveth up the spirit, and 
where is he?" Where is the soul? Did it reject the 
Savior, and slight his mercy? Then it is a lost soul! 

The speaker leads his audience to the mouth of the 
open pit. From the fearful depths roll up fiercely the 
angry billows of "the smoke of their torment," and 
ascend, "forever and ever." With him they peer 
down through the sulphurous gloom into the fearful 
confusion of endless night and eternal woe. Their 
ears catch the sound of a groan — deep, hollow, and 
unearthly. They start with horror, but they are spell- 
bound. Again they look, with still intenser gaze, and 
deeper, deeper, deeper, beyond all calculation, in a 
lonely, horrid vault, stands the pale, afii'ighted ghost, 
whose earthly tenement w^as buried to-day. With 
restless, maniacal glare, its eyes roll wildly in their 
hollow sockets. Suddenly a fierce demon confronts it, 
and with a ghastly, horrid grin, that makes the very 
walls of hell start back with earthquake tremblings, 
shrieks into its ear its hopeless doom. Amid the 
gloom of lurid " darkness visible," it flies o'er rugged, 
trackless, burning wastes, gathering deeper horrors 
as it flies, until hopeless despair, unfelt before, seizes 
upon every vital of the guilty soul. It pauses amid 

ten thousand times ten thousand writhing, groaning, 

12 



134 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

shapeless types of death, gathers immortal strength 
from fright and horror and despair, and concentrates 
it all in one brief word, repeated thrice, which sounds 
the funeral knell of hope expired, and sums the essence 
of immortal woes — '' lost ! lost ! lost ! " Myriads of 
brother souls, who trampled on redeeming blood, and 
mocked and scorned the sufferings of the Son of God, 
start with accelerated woe, and echo from a thousand 
reeking vaults the fearful word of doom, until the 
horrid jargon grates upon the ear of fiends with pain 
of anguish unendurable. But look again ! Among 
these multitudes, wasted and haggard from unrelieved 
and hopeless agony, are some familiar forms. Who is 
that, bound "hands and feet," with burning chains, 
standing on the cragged, blackened rocks, and with 
frothing mouth and livid, rolling eyes gnashing upon 
the red, glowing links of his fetters, and in maddened 
fury blaspheming the name of God? See! a taunting 
fiend holds just beyond his grasp a glass of spiced and 
sparkling wine. Wasted and haggard as he is, I see 
some lines familiar on his face; and in that husky, 
hollow voice there is something I have heard before. 
Drunkard — gambler — voluptuary! he was your boon 
companion in last year's revelry. Look further still — 
far out amid those dreary wastes. It is an old man, 
stooped and withered to a skeleton. That mocking 
demon holds before his lustful eyes a silver coin and 
lures him on. Hear what a fearful shriek! The 
demon points him to an image of the cross, gory with 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 135 

the blood of Jesus Christ. Memory presses into his 
guilty soul a thousand poisoned barbs of remorse, and 
pangs immortal rack his conscience forever! Sinner 
against divine mercy! that is you, covetous father, 
who, Judas-like, sold his Savior and the hope of eternal 
life for a perishing pittance. Take one more general 
glance. See the vast multitude, wandering, pale and 
affrighted, among all the gloomy, fiery vaults of ray- 
less night — writhing, groaning, starting, shrieking — 
lost in eternal despair! They are our brothers. 
Mercy, life, and heaven were offered them; they re- 
jected all. Their day of probation is passed; and 
yonder you see them reaping what they sowed — re- 
ceiving the reward of their doings ! 

Again the speaker leads his audience to a dying bed 
on earth. They breathe freely, for it is a heaven com- 
pared with the scene they have just beheld. Again 
they look upon the pale face and glazed eyes, and 
listen to the short, rapid breathing. But this time a 
soft, mild light overspreads the pallor of the cheek, 
and glows in the death-dews on the cold, white brow. 
They stand by the couch of a dying Christian; the 
spirit passes quietly away ; the corpse is borne to its 
silent resting-place ; and as the friends bury their dead 
out of their sight, " a sleep in Jesus " falls softly on 
their ears, and they quietly turn back to their homes. 
" Man dieth and waste th away ; yea, man giveth up the 
spirit, and where is he ? " We do not fear to ask this 
solemn question. That soul is a child of divine grace. 



136 LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHER. 

On its ne-vvly-plumed wings it rises far above tlie blight- 
ing sorrows of mortalityj and, escorted by angel attend- 
ants, it enters into that glorious world of fadeless light 
and love, on whose living beauties no darkening shadow 
ever falls. The eyes of his audience follow the direc- 
tion of the speaker's hand. He leads them to the 
green, flowery bank of the river of life. Near the 
head of that beautiful river, w^hose clear, sparkling 
waters gush out from beneath the great white throne, 
and glide in crystal cascades over diamond pebbles 
through the streets of the golden city, stands a late in- 
habitant of earth. He is ''clothed in linen, clean and 
white ; " his cheeks are ruddy with the bloom of im- 
mortal youth; his countenance glows with a raptured 
smile of inward joy and peace. In his left hand he 
holds a rich cluster of fruit, just gathered from the 
tree of life, and with his right he lifts up to his lips a 
golden cup, filled with the waters of the living fountain. 
This is the soul of him whose mortal part to-day was 
put to rest beneath the sod. The Son of God ap- 
proaches with a smile of heavenly love, and places on 
his head " a crown of life," and bids him welcome to 
his father's home: "Enter thou into the joys of thy 
Lord!" He gazes, with joy and wonder unspeakable, 
upon the boundless treasures of redeeming love ; and 
with a voice attuned to harmony divine he tlmce re- 
peats the raptured word which triumphs over trembling 
doubts and fears, and separates forever from the sor- 
rows, pains, and cares of mortal life, Saved, saved, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 137 

saved! The angels around the throne respond, 
"Amen;" and from a thousand verdant hills and 
flowery plains " a great multitude, which no man 
could number," cry "Amen! hallelujah! glory, and 
honor, and power, and dominion be unto him who 
hath redeemed us from the earth, and washed us in 
his own blood ! " And again the angels around the 
throne respond, "Amen! hallelujah!" Among this 
happy throng that walk the gold-paved streets, and 
congregate among the sapphire thrones to offer praise 
with harp and song to him who bought them with his 
blood, or wander as they will o'er yonder glorious 
fields of light, are forms we used to love on earth. 
See ! further down this sparkling river, yon little rock- 
bound dale, bespangled over with a thousand brilliant 
gems, and strewn with myriads of never-fading flow- 
ers. See ! beneath the arching rainbow that circles 
over yonder little snowy grotto at its head; there sits 
upon a jasper-stone a youthful woman, clad in a robe 
of spotless white; a wreath of smiles, so bright and 
sweet that they seem to speak excess of joy in her 
heart, clusters round her lips; her sparkling eyes are 
lit with holy love, and on her fair young cheek glows 
the rosy blush of health. Young man ! that is your 
sister, who, of consumption, died in youth, but ^Yho 
before had given herself to the Savior of sinners. 
See how softly she touches the chords of her golden 
harp ; and listen how tenderly flows the music from 
her slightly parted lips! She is singing a hymn of 



138 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

redeeming love ; and in it she is softly pouring out her 
soul in gratitude to him who saved her from eternal 
woe, and brought her to this glorious, happy heaven. 
See that little group that talk and smile so sweetly as 
they promenade along the river's ban!k, stopping now 
to pluck the fruit that hangs so richly on the trees 
that grow beside " the river of water," and anon pick- 
ing the ever-blooming flowers that grow in number- 
less varieties on the soft greensward pressed by their 
feet. That is a mother and her orphan babes. Her 
husband, drunken and debauched, died and " went to 
his own place;" his wife, impoverished by his crimes 
and disgraced by his bad name, was poor and friend- 
less. She sought and found one friend, who took her 
little orphans first to his own home. One week ago 
he called for her. She laid aside her tattered weeds 
of widowhood, and now you see her wear the spotless 
robe of white. Her little boy and girl had learned to 
sing before she came. Hear how sweetly they sing in 
harmony with all this mighty host redeemed! One 
theme ten thousand times ten thousand tongues em- 
ploys. On those glorious heights afar, along the wide, 
extended plains, in every little flowery dale, beside the 
sparkling river's crystal tide, the multitudes, arrayed 
in white, sing, in one enraptured strain, "redeeming 
grace and dying love." Reverberating along the streets 
of the holy city, echoing among the burnished dia- 
mond thrones, floating along the shaded aisle between 
the verdant trees of life, swelling in raptured strains 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 139 

from heaven's utmost bounds, is heard the same im- 
mortal anthem of redeemins: love. 

0, is it not joyous thus to dwell among these fade- 
less glories, and di'ink the rapture of this holy bliss? 
The speaker is lost in the sublimity of his own contem- 
plations. The audience have followed him in his rapt, 
impassioned eloquence until they have become uncon- 
scious of all surrounding circumstances, and are iden- 
tified with the scenes he describes. Sometimes a whole 
con2:re2;ation would rise to their feet and lean forward 
toward the speaker. The speaker here pauses, and, 
lowering his voice, says: "But we must remember we 
are still on earth, surrounded by many temptations, 
and some of us unprepared to enter into those im- 
mortal joys." He would exhort them to prepare at 
once to enter into that rest, the contemplation of 
which was so glorious. 

The reader who has heard Mr. Fisher will feel that 
this feeble description falls far short of doing him jus- 
tice. To have any adequate conception of his won- 
derful powers of oratory, one must have seen and 
heard the living orator for himself. 



140 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER XV. 

As has been before intimated, no description on 
paper can give a just conception of an orator. This 
is a truth of general application, but it applies with 
peculiar force in the case of Mr. Fisher. He had no 
model. His style of composition, the pure originality 
of his thought, and his inimitable manner of delivery 
forbid comparison. We know he was an orator of 
eminent, not to say pre-eminent, ability; not because 
he spoke like an orator (^. g., like any other orator), 
but from the unbounded influence he exercised over 
his audience. 

The narrow critics of his time are always incapable 
of doing justice to the abilities of a man of rare origi- 
nality. They do not appreciate him because he is un- 
like their models, to whom he is probably vastly supe- 
rior. It is left for succeeding generations to do him 
honor. Homer, during his life, was only "one of the 
poets;" when three thousand years have passed away, 
he is regarded '' the world's greatest poet." Socrates 
was scarcely respected by his cotemporaries ; but the 
criticism of thirty centuries has given him an eminent 
position among the greatest philosophers of the human 
race. Shakespeare was not appreciated in his genera- 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 141 

tion because he was unlike Ben Jonson ; to equal him 
would now be regarded as the highest honor for which 
a dramatic writer can hope. Milton experienced 
much difficulty in selling the copyright of '^ Paradise 
Lost" for the trifling sum of three pounds sterling; 
that inimitable poem is now found in the library or on 
the center-table of almost every cultivated family 
where the English language is spoken. The same 
might be said of hundreds of other great lights of the 
human race. Like a fine painting or an elegant piece 
of statuary, a high order of genius appears to better 
advantage as we recede from it. 

The following description of a sermon, preached by 
Mr. Fisher in Scottsville, Kentucky, in the spring of 
A. D. 1848,^ will probably give as correct an idea of 
his oratory as can be presented: He preached from 
the words, "Behold the Man!" In the presentation 
of the subject he proposed to behold the Messiah — 
I. In prophecy. 
XL In his incarnation. 

III. As JUDGE OF ALL THE EARTH. 

In presenting the first proposition — -When man had 
fallen from his holy estate, the angel visitors had 
quitted the green, flowery walks of Eden; a guard 
had been stationed around the tree of life; man had 
been driven out into the dreary world, accursed for 



*Por the outlines of this description, the author acknowledges 
his indebtedness to Elder J. B. Evans, M. D. 

13 



142 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

his sake; and the divine presence had been with- 
drawn — he imagined the sun to have gone down and 
left the world in night — night in the zenith of her un- 
disputed domain. The blackness of darkness reigned 
supreme. No rival ray of light penetrated the fearful 
gloom ; no twinkling star relieved the blackness of the 
heavens ; foul, damp vapors thickened the fetid atmos- 
phere, and man's guilty imagination conjured up mul- 
titudes of loathsome reptiles, horrid hobgoblins, and 
fierce, destructive enemies invisible to his opaque 
eye. All nature sank appalled, and wrapped itself in 
hopeless gloom. Man's heart, whose every beat 
startled his outraged conscience, pulsated only in his 
own guilty bosom. Every aspiration recoiled back on 
his deadened soul, and he was overwhelmed with hope- 
less, unrelieved despair. The remembrance of Eden's 
glories only increased his present helpless woe, and 
light, blown out by its Creator's wrath, but made the 
darkness more oppressive still. Adding deeper agonies 
to his terror-striqken soul, the thundering echoes of 
the fearful sentence, fixing his eternal doom, fell 
ceaselessly upon his ear — ^' Thou shalt surely die." 
He saw no light; he felt no hope; he only heard mut- 
tering, in the dreadful tones of God Almighty's wrath, 
through the utter darkness that enveloped all the 
earth, the threatenings of eternal woe. Sinking down 
in helpless, hopeless agony, at length he raised his 
despairing eyes toward the throne of a rejected and 
insulted God, 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 143 

At an infinite distance above his head he saw the 
faint glimmering of one little star — " The seed of the 
woman shall bruise the serpent's head." One ray of 
light had reached his dark abode — one beam of hope 
dawned upon his despairing soul. With steady, long- 
ing gaze he strained his eyes, till lo ! another star ap- 
peared, clearer and brighter than the first, and then 
another, and another, till constellation after constel- 
lation appeared, and the vaulted heavens glowed with 
the resplendent glory of their light. A Savior was 
promised to fallen man, and he rejoiced for himself 
and his posterity. That Savior was to be his own off- 
spring; according to the flesh — a man; but "mighty 
to save," even " to the utmost, all that came to God by 
him." He was to be "the seed of the woman," "the 
seed of Abraham," "a prophet like Moses," "the 
child of a virgin," "a man of sorrow." The fallen 
race, no longer in darkness and despair, waited with 
patience and hope for the time when they should 
"behold the man in his incarnation." Twenty cen- 
turies had passed away since the little glimmering star 
first appeared to man's despairing gaze. Many gener- 
ations had waited in hope, and passed away without 
seeing the fulfillment of the promise. Some had 
grown faithless, and said, "Where is the promise of 
his coming?" Old Simeon waited in the temple at 
Jerusalem, under special promise that he should live 
to see the Lord's Christ. Old Anna, imbued with the 
spirit of prophecy, also awaited his coming. On the 



144 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

plains of Judea the faithful shepherds were watching 
their flocks bj night. ''All things had gone on as 
from the foundation of the world." The stars that 
hung over Eden's virgin bowers shone softly down on 
the watchful shepherds and their grazing flocks. 
"And lo! the angel of the Lord came upon them, 
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. 
And the angel said, . . . Behold I bring you good 
tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For 
unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a 
Savior, who is Christ the Lord." "And suddenly 
there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly 
host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace, good-will to men." 
Listen to the choral voice of the mighty multitude 
rolling along the studded vaults of heaven in obedi- 
ence to the divine command : " Let all the angels of 
God worship him." " Glory to God in the highest, 
peace on earth, good-will to men!" 

Here the speaker briefly discussed several points, 
as Christ's obedience to the law, his miracles, his be- 
trayal, mock trial, and condemnation, till he came to 
this world's greatest tragedy — the crucifixion. 

At the cross he rose to such a height of sublimity 
that his congregation felt rather than heard. Lan- 
guage utterly fails to convey any idea of the grandeur 
his deep, impassioned eloquence threw around the 
drama of Golgotha. Angels from the eternal throne 
hovered around the God-man, weeping in sympathy 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 145 

■with their dying Lord; devils, from the depths of 
endless night, waited around the cross, half-exulting, 
half-afraid he might display the God and come down 
from the cross ; hardened men, from the sacerdotal 
altars, wagged their heads in scoffing and disdain; and 
the discordant elements of earth and heaven and hell 
seemed to engage in wild, confused, antagonistic war. 
Physical nature seemed disorganized. The sun went 
out as an expired lamp. The awful tragedy was be- 
ing acted now before the speaker's audience. They 
turned pale and trembled as the gloom of deep dark- 
ness crept over them; they breathed quick and diffi- 
cult as the choking atmosphere became filled with fire 
and smoke; they started with terror and amazement 
when the earth reeled to and fro in its violent quak- 
ings. Deep thunders lent their notes of maddened 
wrath; huge rocks were splintered into fragments; 
and all the discordant elements of dissolving nature 
seemed lashed into violent commotion. But the three 
hours of universal .desolation was about to expire. 
Clear and distinct, above the ragings of thunders and 
earthquakes and storms, came the awe-inspiring words, 
^'Moi, Uloi, lama sahacthaniJ' Nature became silent 
and gave audience. Again the voice cried aloud, "It 
is finished ! " The tragedy closed. The bloody, man- 
gled corpse of God's only -begotten Son is borne to the 
lone sepulcher and laid in its cold, dark vault. The 
sun recovers his light, and sheds his glories on the 
Savior's tomb; angels return to their celestial home; 



146 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

and men — Messiah's friends and foes — return to their 
former avocations. 

Again the speaker leads his audience to "behold the 
man" folded in the icy embrace of death. Night sets 
in — the time that men and devils choose to do their 
darkest deeds ; the hosts of hell are marshaled round 
the Savior's silent grave; they raise their sable in- 
signia in demoniacal triumph over their hated victim, 
and hold insulting jubilee around his tomb, during the 
mournful hours that angels weep; the gloomy night 
is spent in demon revelries. The Sabbath dawns — 
sacred day of rest to God and men; heaven's harps 
are silent as the grave, in which its fairest jewel 
sleeps ; angels hover, with silent wonder, over his 
cold resting-place ; but he sleeps on. For the first 
time since the world began devils celebrate the day; 
they are drunken with victory ; and, as the sacred day 
advances, their mockeries grow more fierce and wild. 
New forms of blasphemy, more boisterous and terrible, 
hail the advent of the second night. Hell is emptied 
of its last recruits for universal triumph most infernal 
on this night. Up to the very stone that hides their 
fallen foe comes the standard-bearer, and plants the 
sable banner on the victim's breast. Louder yells, 
and more furious laughter, and shouts more terrible 
greet the black signal of victory. The third day 
dawns ; the earth moves with a quivering tremor ; 
the half- uttered shout is stayed upon the lips of 
devils, and they turn pale and tremble; two angels 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 147 

from the throne of God come down on lightning wings 
and roll away the stone, and sit upon it; the Roman 
guards fall down as dead men ; with calm majesty 
the Son of God rises from the grave, and throws down 
the shackles of death ; and devils, abashed and pierced 
with pangs of woe immortal, hasten to their prison 
of despair. 

Again the speaker leads his hearers along the high- 
way to Emmaus — to where the eleven were assembled — 
to the sea-shore, where Peter and John and James had 
spent all the night in fruitless fishing, and pauses at 
the Mount of Olives. Here he had taught his , dis- 
ciples many of the glorious truths of the gospel, and 
here he had often prayed alone all night. It was a 
sacred spot to him and his disciples. And now he 
visits it with his beloved followers for the last time, 
to give them his final instructions, and bid them fare- 
well till he should come again to take them to himself, 
and dwell with them forever. While he talked with 
them, a bright cloud appeared in the opening heavens, 
and slowly descended until the celestial chariot waited 
at his right hand. When he had finished his instruc- 
tions, he stepped into the jeweled car, and, waving a 
parting adieu to his loved disciples, he was escorted 
by the cohorts of heaven up to the pearly gates of the 
New Jerusalem. As he approaches the holy city, the 
herald cries : " Lift up your heads, ye gates ; and be 
ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of 
glory shall come in." As he entered into the glory 



148 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

he had with the Father before world was, the elders 
around the throne rise to receive him, and the host 
of heaven shout loud acclamations of praise to the 
conqueror of death, hell, and the grave; and amid 
universal hosannas he is crowned King of kings and 
Lord of lords. 

Long centuries roll on; generations rise and pass 
away; earth has become a mighty sarcophagus, in 
which countless millions of its sons and daughters 
sleep, awaiting the dawn of the eternal morn. Over 
their graves are sporting innumerable multitudes of 
their descendants; strife and confusion still reign; the 
righteous watch, and hope, and pray; the faithful dis- 
ciples of Jesus believe his promise, and look for his 
coming ; the wicked trifle away their fleeting hours, 
and scofi" as in the days of Noah ; eating, and drinking, 
and marrying, and giving in marriage continue as from 
the beginning ; buying, and selling, and getting gain 
still occupy the thoughtless multitudes; wicked scoffers 
still taunt the followers of Christ as in the olden time, 
saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? All 
things continue as from the foundation of the world." 
" Evil men and seducers w^ax worse and worse." Vices 
and debaucheries become more and more refined; many 
who were called Christians, and "did run well for a 
season," have been deceived, and have turned back; 
pious men ask mournfully, " Shall the Son of man find 
faith on the earth when he comes?" But time moves 
on ; the sun hastens to complete the appointed number 



LIFE or THOMAS J. FISHER. 149 

of liis circuits; the fearful secret, locked up in the 
bosom of the Father, "syaits for the appointed moment 
to be revealed to all the living and dead. The mighty 
angel, to whom is assigned the duty of sounding the 
funeral knell of time, stands ready before the throne ; 
the day of doom for all the sons of men comes on 
apace. We wait yet a little while, and *'he that shall 
come will come;" then shall we ''Behold the man as 
judge of all the earth." 

No pen can describe the awful sublimity of the 
speaker's portrayal of the judgment. He led his 
audience into the scene he presented, and they became 
identified with it. 

The judgment day came. Men were engaged in 
their usual avocation. The morning w^as bright and 
calm; there were no unusual appearances. The whole 
face of nature was never more beautiful since man was 
driven out of Eden. Suddenly the sun begins to grow 
pale ; then comes a fearful sound as of a trumpet, but 
louder than sevenfold thunder. Longer and louder 
comes each recurring blast, until the earth trembles 
and reels with fearful violence. The boiling sea is 
dashed over the adjacent plains, and the rivers are 
thrown out of their channels. Still a louder blast, 
and mighty rocks are shaken from their ancient 
places, and lofty hills and mountains totter and fall. 
Another blast of the mighty trumpet, louder and 
longer and more terrible, and the noonday sun has 
faded out; the surface of the earth begins to heave 



150 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

like tlie swell of the ocean in a storm, until it breaks 
into myriads of fragments. Rivers and lakes and 
oceans are swallowed up and disappear, and "there 
is no more sea." On every plain, in every valley, 
wherever human bodies have been laid during the long 
past, countless myriads of graves are opened. Look! 
look ! look ! See that hoary head at your feet, slowdy 
rising out of the open vault and shaking the dust from 
its hair — there is an aged woman coming up near by his 
side! Are those your parents? See how their cheeks 
glow with the healthful blush of immortality ! There 
is a little infant, too, and little children, and youths, 
and maidens, and young men and women, and middle- 
aged. These are your brothers, sisters, friends of your 
youth — some whose name you had almost forgotten — 
your children and grand-parents : see hoAv they all 
rise up. Look! look! look! What countless multi- 
tudes cover the whole earth ! What glorious strength 
and health they exhibit ! '' They were sown in w^eak- 
ness, but raised in power; they were sown in corrup- 
tion, but raised in incorruption." No more death! 
But listen! Hear that voice pealing from the skies 
like the sound of a mighty trumpet. "Behold he 
cometh!" It is a herald from the word of glory. 
See! the vaulted heavens are parting and rolling 
away as a great scroll. Behold that flashing, bur- 
nished throne, brighter than the glory of the midday 
sun, and jeweled with multitudes of precious stones, 
descending in solemn majesty from the loftiest heaven. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 151 

Seated on it is one like to the Son of man. " He is 
clothed with a garment coming down to the foot, and 
girt about the paps with a golden girdle." ''And his 
garment is white as the light." ''And his head and 
his haii'S are white like wool, as white as snow; and 
his eyes are like a flame of fire ; and his feet like fine 
brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice is 
as the sound of many waters." On his right hand are 
ten thousands of his saints, clothed in the spotless 
garments of heaven. On their heads are diadems of 
glory, studded with shining stars. In their right 
hands are palms of victory. See how gracefully they 
wave them in the flashing light of the throne, as they 
cry with one voice, "Holy, holy, holy art thou who 
was dead and art alive, and shalt live for evermore ! " 
Thou shalt judge the earth in righteousness, and re- 
ward every man according to his deeds ; for thou art 
worthy. With solemn majesty the judge descends, 
followed by the shining retinue. But hark, the herald 
repeats again, so loud that all the world may hear, 
"Behold he cometh." But turn again to earth; the 
countless dead have all arisen from their graves; and 
the living, too, have all been "changed in a moment, 
in the twinkling of an eye," from mortality to immor- 
tality ; and together the numberless hosts of the risen 
and the changed look up and behold his coming. 
What strange conflicting lights and shadows play over 
their countenances; what deep, antagonistic passions 
move their souls. Listen to the mingled shouts of 



152 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

jo J and wails of anguish. The righteous, who bore 
his cross and suffered with him in mortal life, waited 
with faith, and hope, and patience for his coming; 
and now, behold he comes, bringing his reward with 
him. He is their savior, their friend, their brother. 
Thej shall share his glory and dwell in his Father's 
house forever. Hail, glorious day! Hear their loud 
acclamations of praise; their shouts of overflowing 

But see the multitude who rejected him on earth, 
and scorned the offers of his mercy. Mercy is gone 
now, and justice reigns. He comes to take ven- 
geance. Hear their wails and cries ! Horror has 
seized upon them ! Listen to their fruitless prayers : 
^'0, rocks and mountains, fall upon us, and hide us 
from the face of him who sitteth upon the throne, and 
from the wrath of the Lamb ! " But rocks and moun- 
tains have all fled away, and there is now no hiding- 
place. But see, the Judge is set; and open before 
him lie the ponderous books. See the nations crowd 
around him. Come, let us go up before him. See 
how the multitude divides ! Hear the sentence of the 
condemned : "- Depart from me, ye accursed, into ever- 
lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels!" 
But to the righteous he announces the happy welcome, 
'' Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom 
prepared for you from the foundation of the world." 
Behold the closing scene of Time's great drama; the 
condemned turn off to the left hand, and with wail- 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 153 

ings indescribable the migbtj host are cast 'into hell. 
The remembrance of mercy slighted, the fierce pangs 
of endless remorse, the companionship of furious 
devils, the burning fires of God Almighty's wrath, 
and the deep, infernal gloom of everlasting darkness 
and despair, entail on them eternal woe unutterable. 
But once more "behold the Man;" do not forget 
that he is the child of the manger, the poor peasant 
of Galilee, the sufferer on the cross, and the insulted 
corpse in the borrowed tomb. He has gathered around 
him ail the purchase of his blood ; and with his treas- 
ure redeemed from earth, he once more enters the 
pearly gates of New Jerusalem. His prayer is an- 
swered; his servants are all with him where he is, and 
they behold his glory. They are arrayed in heaven's 
spotless robes, and on their heads are star-gemmed 
crowns of life. Hear the swelling acclamations of 
joy and praise ! Listen to the thrilling symphonies 
of redeeming love. What lofty hosannas and halle- 
lujah's reverberate along the golden streets : hail, holy, 
happy sons of God ; hail, glorious, bright, eternal day ; 
hail, joyous home of everlasting peace and rest! All 
hail to God and his all-conquering Son ! 



154 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER XYI. 

It has been remarked that with the rise of pro- 
tracted meetings God raised up a class of young men 
especially adapted to this work. This was the great 
leading employment of Mr. Fisher's life. During a 
period of more than thirty years, his unflagging en- 
ergy, his tireless industry, his wonderful genius, and 
his matchless oratory were devoted principally to this 
one object. A detailed history of his labors is neither 
possible nor desirable, since no one would be willing to 
read a detailed account of more than five hundred pro- 
tracted meetings, during the progress of which it is 
estimated that more than ten thousand persons pro- 
fessed the religion of Jesus Christ. 

During the long period of his active labors in the 
gospel ministry, he opposed, with characteristic energy, 
what he supposed to be the religious errors of the 
times in which he lived, and zealously supported the 
benevolent enterprises of the day. From his twen- 
tieth year of age to his death he opposed, with great 
zeal and earnestness, what he regarded the fatal error 
of Campbellism. 

His first public debate on this subject was with 
Dr. L. L. Pinkerton, at Middletown, Pennsylvania, in 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 155 

January or February of A. D. 1832. This was before 
Mr. Fisher was twenty years old, and while he was a 
member of David's Fork Baptist Church, in Fayette 
County, Kentucky; having in his possession, however, 
a letter of dismissal from that church, which he pre- 
sented to the Baptist Church at Pittsburg, Pennsyl- 
vania, on the 6th of March following. 

The question debated by Mr. Fisher and Dr. Pin- 
kerton was to this effect: ^'Does the Holy Spirit 
operate upon the hearts of men in their conversion?" 
Mr. Fisher affirmed; Dr. Pinkerton denied. Mr. 
Fisher, though under twenty years of age, seems to 
have gotten so much advantage in the debate that the 
Doctor became chagrined, and soon after made and 
carried a motion to excommunicate the impudent boy 
from a small society of Campbellites in Middletown, 
of which he (Mr. Fisher) was not then and never had 
been a member. 

The doctrine of direct spiritual influence on the 
hearts of men was very prominent in all Mr. Fisher's 
religious teachings, from the period of his debate with 
Dr. Pinkerton, which occurred some months before he 
was licensed to preach, till his death. His strong con- 
fidence in the truth of this ancient Christian doctrine, 
and the zeal with which he opposed any innovation on 
it, led him into frequent controversies with the Camp- 
bellite Society, the only Christian sect of any consid- 
erable number that ever denied it. 

Among his public debates may be named two with 



156 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

Elder Wm. Clark, a Campbellite preacher of very con- 
siderable ability. Both of these occurred about the 
year 1839; one at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and the 
other at West Point, Kentucky. A familiar illustra- 
tion Mr. Fisher used during the debate at Elizabeth- 
town is worth recording. One of Mr. Clark's proposi- 
tions was to the effect that "no rational adult could be 
saved without being immersed." Mr. Fisher urged 
the consequence of this dogma upon the millions of 
pious Pedobaptists, living and dead, so strenuously 
that Mr. Clark finally admitted a hope that he would 
meet many of these Pedobaptists in heaven, notwith- 
standing they had not been immersed. In noticing 
this admission in his reply, Mr. Fisher said : " My op- 
ponent reminds me of an unskilled hunter, who went 
out to track up wild animals in the snow. He soon 
came to where some animal had passed along. He 
did not know what it was, nor which way it was going ; 
but he had started a-hunting, and he must follow the 
track any way. So he immediately set out — whether 
following the animal or tracing its back-track, he did 
not know. However, he followed on through the deep 
snow, over steep hills and rough hollows, through tan- 
gled brush and briars, till after sunset. At last, after 
it began to grow dark, he came to where the animal 
had crossed its own track. Here, in the midst of a 
strange, wide, dark forest, he paused, and looking all 
around, confused and frightened, he cried out in a de- 
spairing voice, ' I 'm lost ! I 'm lost ! and the thing I 'm 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 157 

following is lost!'" A short time after the second 
debate with Mr. Fisher, Mr. Clark joined the Baptists, 
and died a few years ago, an able defender of their 
peculiar doctrines. 

In June, 1857, Mr. Fisher held a public debate with 
Elder Benjamin Franklin, a prominent Campbellite 
minister, and editor of the American Christian Re- 
vietv, Cincinnati, Ohio. This debate has been pub- 
lished in a neat volume of 366 pages, and is before 
the public. 

Mr. Fisher was a fair oral debater before a popular 
audience. His oratorical powers, his ready wit, and his 
forcible, impassioned delivery, gave him many advan- 
tages over every antagonist he debated with, and his 
eloquence carried conviction to his audience; but his 
logical powers were not above mediocrity, and were 
not sufficiently discriminating to give him a high posi- 
tion as a debater. This was not his gift. Nature 
designed him to be a pulpit orator, and the circum- 
stances of his life developed to an eminent degree 
that noble gift. 

His published debate with Mr. Franklin does not do 
justice to his eminent abilities as an orator. The 
scope of sophistical caviling was too narrow for an 
exhibition of his eminently poetical style. He coped 
well with a wily antagonist, but found no room for the 
play of his great genius. As no stream can rise 
above its source, so no speaker can rise above his 
subject. In debate there is no legitimate place for 

11 



158 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHEE. 

poetical beauty of expression, beautiful flights of the 
imagination, bold and elegant figures of speech, or fine 
oratorical painting; hence, in this kind of speaking he 
was cramped; his mind sought its natural channel in 
the higher spheres of oratorical genius, while his sub- 
ject called him to logical investigation. His speeches 
in debate, therefore, were a compromise between the 
requirements of his subject and his mental instincts, 
and hence they formed a grotesque medley, neither 
oratorical nor logical. The reading public will sadly 
underrate his abilities from reading his debate. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 159 



CHAPTER XVII. 

In exposing error, Mr. Fisher was sometimes very 
severe; and he denounced vice in no mild terms. He 
rebuked with such unmeasured severity the crime of 
vicious and grossly immoral men, that he made many 
enemies among them and their immediate friends. This 
was doubtless the origin of many ridiculous reports, 
which the eccentricities of his character made the un- 
thinking the more readily credit. To these he paid 
but little regard, and his biographer leaves them to 
the judgment of those who knew him best, as he him- 
self did in his lifetime, only stating that during a 
period of thirty-five years, in which he held uninter- 
rupted church membership in Baptist churches, it does 
not appear that any charge of unchristian behavior 
was ever preferred against him in his church. 

Elder R. L. Thurman says of him : " He had some 
eccentricities and marked peculiarities of character 
which some would call defects — perhaps they were ;. but 
the brilliant constellation of gentlemanly and Christian 
graces which he possessed obscured these defects, like 
the light of the sun the dark spot in its disk." 

Elder A. B. Miller writes: "I have known of Mr. 
Fisher from my earliest recollections. I was also 



160 LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHER. 

acquainted with liis fatlier, and many of liis family. 
I have been pastor of four churches where he has held 
meetings .... Brother Fisher was a truly pious and 
devoted man of God. Of this I have abundant proof. 
It was once my pleasure to labor with him in a meet- 
ing at Hickman, Kentucky (in 1858), for five con- 
secutive weeks, during which I had the most conclusive 
evidence of his ability as a minister, and devotion to 
the cause. He preached w^ith great powder and unction. 
When upon his favorite themes, I think he surpassed 
any pulpit orator I have ever heard. In this meeting, 
as in others where I have heard him, his most powerful 
sermons were upon ' the depravity of the human heart,' 
Hhe divinity of Christ,' 'the love of God,' and Hhe 
immortality of the soul.' Upon these he held his con- 
gregations spell-bound, and they produced most won- 
derful results. Persons were frequently lifted from 
their seats and stood erect under his thrillini>; elo- 
quence. I have seen whole congregations bathed in 
tears as, in tender, pathetic tones, he spoke of the 
love of God, in making us his children and joint heirs 
with his Son to the incorruptible inheritance; then I 
have seen the same persons almost frantic as he por- 
trayed the horrors of a lost soul. 

"During the meeting at Hickman he and I stayed 
together, and slept in the same room every night. I 
must mention that oft, in tlie silent hours of the night, 
when all was hushed in slumber, I. have awaked and 
found him on his knees, beseeching the Lord to have 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 161 

mercy on poor lost sinners. He often became so 
intensely concerned for those ^vlio had requested 
an interest in his prayers, that it was impossible 
for him to sleep. Whenever he went into a com- 
munity to preach he seemed to be imbued with the 
spirit of John Knox, when he said, ' Give me Scotland 
or I die.'" 

Many of his brethren all over the southern states 
speak of him in terms of enthusiasm. His sleepless 
devotion to the great labors of love, his indefatigable 
energy and industry, and the magic power of his elo- 
quence, have been the wonder of thousands of his co- 
temporaries; but they are forever stilled in the chilling 
silence of an untimely death. 

"If Mr. Fisher ever committed an error," said his 
accomplished wife, "it was an error of the head and 
not of the heart." In the home circle, his tender affec- 
tion for his wife and only child was a higher com- 
mendation of his heart than all his splendid greatness 
abroad. In his quiet home, with the wife of his youth 
sitting by his side, and the long-withheld pledge of 
their youthful love sitting on his knee, the renowned 
orator, upon whose impassioned eloquence thousands 
had hung in rapt silence, became the fond husband 
and doting father. Here, like Sampson shorn of his 
locks, he became as other men. The voice that 
thrilled a thousand hearts with the soul - enrapturing 
thoughts of heaven, or startled the guilty multitudes 
with the terrors of the second death, softened into the 



162 LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHEll. 

mild accents of domestic love, was none the less elo- 
quent to the little audience of two. 

The following letter, addressed to his daughter when 
she was about four years old, intended, of course, as a 
communication to her mother, as well as an expression 
of tender affection for his child, will show not only 
how dearly he loved his family, but also how earnestly 
he was devoted to the work in which he was engaged : 

Danville, Ky., December 4, 1847. 

My Bear Baby: Your papa has been preaching 
here to poor sinners for upward of a week; and such 
a revival has taken place that the like has never 
been witnessed in this town before. About forty 
precious souls have been converted, and there is a 
crowd of mourners of all classes. You and dear 
mother must pray for me. I am in good health and 
fine spirits. 

My daughter, you must be a good girl, and obedient 
to your mother; and when the Lord returns your papa 
home, he will bring his sweet little darling some pretty 
things. Brother Combs sends his love to you and 
mother. Tell mother that papa will write to her by 
and by. Tell her all the folks here want to see her. 
Tell sister Drane that brother Drane is well, and 
sends his love to her and the babies. I must now go 
and pray for mourners. Good-bye, my darling. 

Your papa, 

T. J. Fisher. 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 163 

The following letter was written to his daughter 
when she was about eleven years old: 

VicKSBURG, Miss., March 11, 1854. 

My Dear^ Dear Daugliter : I begin to think that 
you have forgotten me. If I had wings I would, with 
the help of .God, see you before morning. Your pap 
is prostrated; but I hope soon to recruit. 

I do wish you and mother were here. You would 
enjoy the spring of this climate. The flowers are 
blooming so beautifully — the greatest variety I have 
ever seen. I have fifty kinds of seeds. 

The people here are kind. I have met with many 
friends, but I would not exchange Kentuck for any 
other state. I hope my daughter has a great many 
pretty verses of Scripture and poetry to recite when 
I return home. 

Your papa has been trying to pray for his child, 
while remembering others, at a throne of grace. I 
hope you pray for yourself. The blessed Jesus says : 
"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid 
them not." And again : " They that seek me early 
shall find me." The child Samuel early sought the 
Lord; Josiah was but eight years old when "he did 
that which was right in the sight of the Lord ; " Jesus 
at twelve years old was found in the temple ; Timothy 
knew the Scriptures from a child. In them you will 
read about Jesus Christ — how he became a child for 
you, and how kind he was to children. There you 



164 LIFE OF THOMAS J FISHER. 

will learn, also, that it is your duty to obey your 
parents and teachers. See Eph. vi, 1-3; Col. iii, 20; 
and 1 John iv. Therefore, you should read your 
Bible. 

I had a great meeting in Natchez. Ninety-six were 
added to the church. Seventy were baptized. 

I will go from here to Lake Providence, La., and 
from there home, the Lord willing. I hope we will 
meet again on earth, but if not, I hope we will meet 
in heaven. Be a good child, and kiss mother for me. 
May kind Heaven bless my child, is the prayer of 
Your papa, T. J. Fisher. 

Mr. Fisher spent a portion of about twenty winters, 
during his ministerial life, in the extreme southern 
states. His last tour through that lovely region was 
during the winter and spring of 1861. He regarded 
his labors during this tour as among the most interest- 
ing and successful of his life. He reported to the 
State Ministers' Meeting, or General Association of 
Kentucky, ''over six hundred conversions," as a re- 
sult of meetings he held during this tour. 

The following abstract of a letter written to his wife 
will be of interest to the Christian reader : 

Mobile, Ala., March 5, 1861. 

My Bear Wife: Your kind letter came to hand last 
night. I was truly glad to hear from you. 

I am in one of the greatest revivals of my life. 
There have been over one hundred conversions. The 



LIFE OP THOMAS J. FISHER. 1G5 

whole city is moved, from center to circumference. I 
never preached with such power in all my life. God 
is with me indeed. I expect to close on Sunday. 
This is my sixth week in the city. There have been 
about sixty additions to the church. Pray for me ! 

I expect to go from here to Selma, Alabama. 
Write to me there. The whole country is a blooming 
paradise. Tell all my friends that I send them my 
love. I do not know when I will come home. I am 
worn down, but I hope the Lord will sustain me. It 
is now twelve o'clock at night. Kiss all the children 
for me. I do want to see you so much. 

My dear, if you need any thing, buy it. I hope 
the Lord will take care of us. I wish you were with 
me. Good night, my dearest. God bless you, is the 
prayer of Your husband, 

T. J. Fisher. 

During the great civil war which broke out into 
active hostilities in April, 1861, Mr. Fisher was con- 
fined to a narrower sphere and performed less labor 
than during any period of his very active ministerial 
career. But at the close of the great struggle he 
again fully resumed the active duties of his holy call- 
ing. During the space of a few months he held sev- 
eral meetings in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee, 
and was preparing to go to Illinois to hold a meeting 
when he was so suddenly called away from the scene 
of his earthly labors forever. 

15 



166 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

Some of his last meetings were attended with very 
great success. At a meeting held in Tennessee, about 
three months before his death, he speaks of the pow- 
erful manifestations of the Holy Spirit attending his 
preaching; the congregation sometimes rising to their 
feet during the delivery of a sermon. Concerning a 
meeting held in Glasgow, Kentucky, during the last 
fall, he says: "I preached eleven days and nights to 
the church in Glasgow; it was truly a refreshing sea- 
son, from the presence of the Lord. There were fifty 
conversions among the whites. I never preached with 
more light and liberty in my life. To God be all the 
praise forever." 

He seemed to enter into his labors with renewed 
energy when the restrictions were moved out of the 
way. As a stream of water whose channel has been 
obstructed for a while moves with greater force and 
rapidity when the gorge is removed, so his great 
mind and living energies, for a time restrained by 
uncontrollable circumstances, when released from the 
shackles that fettered them, rushed with eager force 
into the channel along which they had glided, almost 
without interruption, during a period of more than a 
quarter of a century. During the fall and early part 
of the winter (1865) he had been troubled with sore- 
ness of the throat and lungs, and coughed much at 
night. This was very unusual with him, being a man 
of strong physical constitution and excellent health. 
His wife urged him to remain at home until his health 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 1G7 

was restored; but he replied that he had many press- 
ing calls to preach the gospel; poor sinners were 
dying all around him ; he had already lost too much 
time, and he must be engaged in his Master's cause. 
He seemed as one born to labor perpetually. He de- 
sired to '' accomplish, as a hireling, his day." His sun 
had already passed the meridian, but there was much 
more work to do than he had done. He had led many 
souls to Christ, but there were still many thousands in 
the broad way that leads to death. He had sought the 
work of a Christian minister in his boyhood; he had 
labored in it with constancy and delight during the 
strength of his manhood; and now that he was ap- 
proaching the gloomy years in which men say they 
"have no pleasure in them," h^ loved the labors of his 
holy calling none the less. But unsuspected by all, 
save Him who seeth the end from the beginning, his 
labors on the earth were nearing their close. The full, 
steady flame of his lamp is about to be blown out 
without a mementos warning ; his sun was about to set 
at noon, and leave the world another example of the 
uncertainty of human life. 



168 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

On Saturday morning, December 30, 1865, Mr. 
Fisher left his comfortable home and happy family at 
Bardstown, Kentucky, to return to it no more. Many 
hundreds of times had he kissed the beloved com- 
panion of his youth a cheerful good-bye, and em- 
braced the darling pledge of their mutual love, to go 
forth into the great field of labor assigned him by his 
Lord ; but he had as often gladdened their hearts by a 
happy return. They had learned to expect him when 
his work was done, and they now consoled themselves 
with the pleasing anticipation that he would again 
cheer them with a husband's and father's saluta- 
tion when he should stand his watch on the walls 
of Zion. Happy delusion ! Blissful ignorance of the 
future ! How grateful mankind ought to be that God 
has drawn an impenetrable vail between them and 
their future miseries on earth ! If all the sorrows and 
suffering of mortal life were held up before us in 
youth, who could endure to walk the path that led to 
such a certain destiny? Who could smile to-day if he 
knew that death would overtake him or his dearest 
friend to-morrow? Who could have patience and 
courage to sow and cultivate if he knew he would not 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 169 

live to reap ? Who could part clieerfully with a loved 
one if he knew the beloved would not return? It 
were better that the drug which must be swallowed 
were sweet in the mouth, even if it is bitter in the 
bowels. 'T is blessed to hope, with patience and con- 
fidence, for good in the future, even if that hope 
should prove a delusion at last. 

On the same day that Mr. Fisher left his home, he 
reached Bagdad, a small villao;e in the north-east 
corner of Shelby County, Kentucky, and preached 
that night. On New Year's day he preached from 
these words: "This year thou shalt die." While he 
urged upon his audience the solemn purport of this 
text of Holy Writ, perhaps no one thought of making 
an application of it to the strong, healthy speaker, 
upon whose words of burning eloquence they hung 
with awe and delight. He continued preaching at 
Bagdad until Sunday night, January 7, 1866. On 
that night he preached his last sermon. His text was 
the paragraph of Scripture which gives an account of 
the Savior's being tempted by the devil, recorded in 
the first eleven verses of the fourth chapter of the 
Gospel by Matthew. He who had, during the last 
thirty years, probably preached six thousand times, 
and witnessed twelve thousand professions of religion, 
was now leaving the pulpit forever. On the 8th of 
January — a day ever memorable in American his- 
tory — he bid many warm friends a cheerful adieu, 
promising to visit them again soon, the Lord willing, 



170 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

stepped aboard the cars at 8:30 o'clock A. M., and 
reached Louisville at 11 : 30 o'clock. He expected to 
collect two thousand dollars in Louisville on that day, 
from a friend that was owing him that amount. His 
friend not having the money at hand, he was com- 
pelled to wait until the next day, in order to receive 
it. He took supper with a friend in the city that 
evening. After tea, he started out on the street, to 
go a short distance, to transact some item of business. 
At about 8 o'clock p. m. he was found lying on the 
pavement, a short distance from where he had taken 
supper, helpless and unconscious. On examination, it 
"was found he had been struck on the side of the head, 
most probably with a slung-shot. His skull was so 
badly fractured that recovery was hopeless. 

No clew to the assassin or the cause of the dreadful 
deed has yet been discovered. Governor Bramlette 
offered a reward for the apprehension of the murderer, 
but he has thus far eluded discovery. The general 
impression among Mr. Fisher's friends is, that the 
assassin had learned that he expected to draw the two 
thousand dollars alluded to, and, supposing he had ob- 
tained the money and had it in his possession, mur- 
dered him for the purpose of obtaining it. He had on 
his person about forty dollars, which the assassin failed 
to find, if that was his object. Whatever the object 
may have been, it was a horrible deed. The guilty 
wretch may escape the hand of human justice, but 
divine vengeance will claim a fearful expiation. Poor 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 171 

monster! he is the loser in the horrid transaction. 
His is a worse case than that of his victim — more 
pitiable than that of the broken-hearted widow or the 
orphaned daughter. Miserable guilty wretch ! he has 
blood on his soul ! He can not escape the avenger ! 
The outraged image of his victim, visible to him alone, 
will follow his steps through every avenue of life. It 
will startle him in his drunken revels, visit him in his 
dark, fevered dreams, and whisper "murder" in his 
ear among his gayest companions. It will sprinkle 
blood on his food, mingle blood with his drink, and 
pour blood on his pillow. It will haunt his guilty 
imagination through life ; stand pale and ghastly at the 
side of his dying couch (if couch on which to die 
should be allowed so foul a wretch) ; and be his fierce 
tormentor amid the wild horrors of eternal night for- 
ever. The frightful deed is done; it can not be re- 
called, and it dare not ask repentance. Poor Cain ! 
he has a blood mark set upon his soul. He is an out- 
cast from earth and heaven, and an object of torture, 
scorn, and derision in hell. Pity him, and leave him 
to his tormentors. 

Mr. Fisher was taken to the house of a friend, and 
received every attention that friendship and medical 
skiU could devise ; but the assassin's missile had placed 
him beyond the reach of human aid. The seal of 
death was set upon him, and he was resigned to the 
hand of that God who "doeth all things well." He 
spoke an incoherent affirmation to one or two direct 



172 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

questions asked him by his friends, hut there was no 
satisfactory evidence of consciousness. When his wife 
reached his side next morning, she took hold of his 
hand and asked him if he knew her. The only sign 
of recognition was a slight pressure of her hand. He 
lay thus wrapped in quiet unconsciousness until noon 
of Thursday, January 11, 1866, when he quietly 
passed away, and went into the presence of God, to 
yield up an account of his stewardship. After almost 
unexampled activity, energy, perseverance, and indus- 
try in the gospel of Christ, during a period of nearly 
thirty-five years, he at last rests from his labors, and 
his works do follow him. He needs no epitaph; his 
usefulness to his race is manifest to the world in the 
thousands he has been instrumental in leading from 
the paths of vice into the righteousness of God, in 
Christ Jesus. 

Many years ago he related his own eulogy. ^'I 
once heard a lady ask him," says Dr. Evans, "if those 
eulogies on his oratory in the public journals did not 
excite his vanity. 'No,' said he; 'when I walk out 
and behold ' the starry firmament, there I read my 
eulogy : " He that turneth many to righteousness shall 
shine as the stars in the firmament." Tliat, my sister, 
is the only eulogy of which I am proud.' " 

On Saturday following his death his funeral was 
preached by Elder George C. Lorrimer, pastor of 
Walnut-street Church, Louisville, and his body was 
deposited in Cave Hill Cemetery, near that city, to 



LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 173 

await tlie comino; of Him in whose service lie lived 
and died. 

Among the many letters of condolence received by 
his bereaved widow and only daughter is found the 
following from a lady friend in Elizabethtown, Ky. 
It is regretted that permission has not been obtained 
from the writer to affix her name: 

Elizabethtowx, February 5, 1866. 

3Iij Dear Friend: How my heart has pained me and 
throbbed with anguish at the terrible calamity that has 
befallen one whom we so dearly loved! He was the 
first one who took me by the hand and bid me God- 
speed when I entered the church on earth. He bap- 
tized me into death in the sacred ordinance instituted 
by our blessed Savior. I shall never forget that happy 
day; it was a lovely Sabbath evening; the cloudless 
sun shone with mild brilliancy, and as the candidates 
for baptism stood in the water awaiting the adminis- 
tration of the solemn ordinance, our beloved brother 
exhorted them to faithfulness in words of livincj; elo- 
quence never to be forgotten. It was one of the most 
lovely scenes I have ever beheld. There stood along 
the sloping grassy banks of the bright, sparkling 
stream many hundreds of people, assembled to wit- 
ness the divinely appointed ceremony, while the faith- 
ful man of God buried with Christ in baptism one 
hundred and fifty happy converts, who had gladly 
received his word. But brother Fisher has gone from 



174 LIFE OF THOMAS J. FISHER. 

among us. We shall hear his voice no more on earth ; 
but in heaven I hope we shall meet him, and be per- 
mitted to join him, as we often have on earth, in 
joyous praises to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 0, 
my sister, that will be a glorious day, when kindred 
and friends shall meet to part no more ! 

May the blessed promises of that Savior who said, 
^'In my Father's house are many mansions," console 
you on earth! 

Your sincere friend. 



A SERMON. 175 



A SEHMON. 

[The following is a fragment of the only sermon Mr. Fisher ever 
wrote. It was written in his early life. It is to be regretted 
that a portion of it is lost.] 

The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh 
is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: 
the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall 
stand forever. (Isaiah xl, 6, 8.) 

It is unnecessary for us to reason from cause to 
effect to prove that all men must wither like grass and 
die. The past, the present, daily and hourly occur- 
rences, bear testimony to the truth of our text. We 
find the king of terrors and terror of kings to be no 
respecter of persons in his withering career. The 
proud prelate and the ermined noble are alike his vic- 
tims. An antediluvian world could not satisfy his 
insatiable appetite; the blood of millions could not 
quench his thirst; and the last remnant of the apos- 
tate Adam must fall before his desolating look. His 
stage of action is the earth and the ocean; his bounds 
are the circle of the universe. This mighty conqueror 
of man rolls his triumphal chariot over kingdoms and 
empires, and chains myriads and myriads to its cruel 
and bloody wheels. The past summer is a monument 
of his terror, ravages, and vengeance. He has swept 



176 A SERMON. 

over our land like some mighty tornado, scattering 
destruction to its widest extent and surest aim, leav- 
ing desolation and misery in his pathway. He has 
torn the fairest, fondest, and tenderest objects of our 
affections from our society, friendship, and bosoms, and 
soon his paralytic stroke will fall on us, and the cold 
dagger of his vengeance will rankle in our bosoms, 
his icy fingers will chill the crimson current which 
meanders through the body. Then every wheel in 
the machinery of our existence will cease to perform 
its revolutions. 

He baffles the physician's skill — his drugs and re- 
storatives are of no avail. The sprightly and aspiring 
youth, the mother's joy and the widow's hope, fall by 
his stroke and wither under his look. The cries of the 
mother and the tears of the widow can not appease his 
anger and stop his desolating career. He ransacks 
the haunts of vice, profanity, and crime; he arrests 
the vicious youth in his midnight revelries, and hurries 
him into eternity, before the Judge of the quick and 
dead. There are none who can resist his mandate, 
nor will the gold of Ophir nor the gems of Peru bribe 
him. Reason, revelation, and experience loudly pro- 
claim that "the wages of sin is death;" and that the 
universe of mankind is subjugated to his dominion and 
must yield to his authority. Sin has brought death 
and an endless train of miseries into this world, and if 
our souls are ever emancipated from the thralldom of 
sin, raised from the gulf of apostasy, and saved' from 



A SERMON. 177 

the horrors and fires of eternal death, it "^ill be by 
faith in the name of a crucified Redeemer. There 
may be of my audience "who are strangers to this 
faith, and aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, 
whose sun may now be setting, and the horrors of an 
eternal night may be closing over them, which will 
raise a barrier that they can not overleap, a wall that 
they can not scale, and fix an impassable gulf between 
them and their God. There they will forever roll 
upon the waves of God's anger, and be tossed upon 
the fiery main; there the burning waves and fiery 
billows of this mighty ocean will dash against the 
ever-during rocks of despair, and their broken frag- 
ments will mingle with the cries of the miserable and 
the groans of the lost and the damned. Had they the 
cattle upon a thousand hills, ten thousand rivers of 
oil, and millions of those bright orbs which gem the 
diadem of night, whose fires light up the universe and 
kindle the heavens into a holy conflagration, they 
would give them all — yes, they would give these, and 
millions more, to be restored to the friendship and 
favor of an ofi'ended Deity. But while they stood 
upon the shores of Time, they despised the Cross and 
insulted Hio-h Heaven. At leno-th death stole the 
charms of life, and withered the roses upon their 
cheeks, and eclipsed their eyes in an endless night. 
Now their state is unalterable, and theii' doom is ir- 
revocably fixed in that world where there is weeping, 
and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. "Well may the 



178 A SERMON. 

prophet say that all flesh is grass. And since these 
words have fallen from his sacred lips, centuries have 
elapsed, and millions have been entombed; kingdoms 
have flourished and towered to eminence ; empires have 
risen and fallen ; laurels have bloomed and withered ; 
monuments have crumbled; diadems and scepters have 
decayed; thrones have been erected upon the ruin of 
nations ; and tyrants have imbrued their hands in the 
blood of sepulchered millions. Kings, with all their 
dazzling splendor, have been wrapped in the winding- 
sheet of death, and this king of terrors has marched 
the mighty armies of nations into eternity. He has 
met the rude sons of the forest, and has withered 
them from the face of time; he has arrested the 
brave sons of the ocean, and has entombed them 
beneath its proud waves and restless billows. 

This world has justly been styled a stage of action, 
and mankind like so many players upon it. Here are 
the high, the low, the rich, and the poor; but as soon 
as the play is over, or as soon as death dissolves them, 
the great distinction vanishes. The human family 
have been compared to so many counters upon a table, 
but as soon as death sweeps them into eternity the 
difi'erence is not perceivable. The Stoic philosophers 
tell us that death is the end and center of all human 
misery and affliction. They also tell us that the most 
painful and cruel death is a noble exercise of our vir- 
tue. This may be explained by the words of a noble 
general. When he had lost a battle, all his ambitious 



A SERMON. 179 

hopes failed. Being ready to fall upon his own sword, 
he cried out : '^ 0, miserable virtue, what art thou but 
a vain, unprofitable word — a name without a being!" 
This man had formerly made virtue his idol, but in 
deep distress it could yield him no comfort. Xerxes, 
king of Persia, when he cast his eyes upon that army 
which numbered one million one hundred thousand 
men, and reflected that in less than one hundred years 
all those brave captains and soldiers would be sleep- 
ing in their graves, was moved to compassion, and 
burst into tears. Who, with an eye upon the world, 
can fail to perceive that this event is but little thought 
of; and though the grave is continually speaking its 
rebuke to human thoughtlessness and infatuation, and 
though friendship, strong and tender, in death often 
pours out its earnest expostulations to the living to 
prepare for death, yet the great mass of the world 
slumber on until they are awakened by the foot- 
steps of that messenger whose approach they can 
not resist. This surely is not wisdom. It shows 
the desperate madness of the human heart. It 
shows that man is guilty, and that he is afraid to 
hold communion with the future, to enter into the 
secret chamber of his own soul and ponder the pros- 
pect of a retribution. Some of the heathen philoso- 
phers have justly said, that we begin to die as soon as 
we begin to live, and that our life is like a candle, 
which lives by its own consumption, its flame being 
that which consumes it. No sooner are we born than 



180 A SERMON. 

we commence a swift race toward the grave, and at 
the very time we are flying from death we insensibly 
approach it, and, contrary to our intentions, we throw 
ourselves into its embraces. The wise heathen phi- 
losophers have compared man to a bubble of water, 
which rises up and swells, and at the same instant 
breaks and disappears. One of these philosophers 
was asked what the life of man was. He immediately 
went into his chamber and directly passed out again. 
This symbolic show gave his disciples to understand 
that the life of man was nothing more than coming 
into the world and going out again. Another one 
took several turns about the room, and immediately 
slipped away and hid himself in a hole, intimating that 
life was a kind of masc[uerade or vain show, over in a 
moment. 

The inventors of the pagan superstitions dedicated 
temples and erected altars to all manner of gods and 
goddesses, not only to virtue and health, but to all 
vices and diseases; also, to fear and cowardice and 
anger, the fever, pestilence, and an infinite number of 
others; but we never find one dedicated to death. 
The very idea of death struck them with horror. 
They had no sacrifice or incense that would appease 
its fury; they considered it to be their worst enemy. 
>i< >H >K ^ Tj^as one of the greatest princes that ever 
reigned; the greatest part of the world obeyed him; 
he put to death prodigious numbers of men; but he 
himself trembled at the approach of death. He con- 



A SERMON. 181 

quered the barbarous nations, and tamed the most sav- 
age beasts, but he could not find a weapon that would 
conquer this great and last enemy. He at length 
killed himself by abstaining from the necessary food 
to support life. Aristotle was the most subtle, the 
most learned of all the philosophers that flourished 
•among the heathen, yet he could not find any solid 
comfort against the fears of death. He was forced to 
cry out, "Of all things terrible, death is the most 
dreadful." death! with what an eye of desperate 
lust from out thine emptied vaults thou didst look after 
the risen multitudes of all mankind! Ah! thou hast 
been the terror long and murderer of all the woman- 
born! None could escape thee. In thy dungeon- 
house, where darkness dwells, and putrid loathsome- 
ness, and fearful silence, villainous, still, and all of 
horrible and deadly name, thou satst from age to age 
insatiate, and drank the blood of men, and gorged 
their flesh, and with thy iron teeth didst grind their 
bones to powder, treading out beneath thy feet their 
very names and memories. The blood of nations 
could not slake thy parched throat; no bribe could 
buy thy favor for an hour, or mitigate thy ever-cruel 
rage for human prey. Gold, beauty, virtue, youth, 
even helpless innocency, failed to soften thy heart 
of stone. The infant's blood pleased well thy taste ; 
and while the mother wept, bereaved by thee, lonely 
and wasted in woe, thy ever-grinding jaws devoured 

her too. 

16 



182 A SERMON. 

How thoughtless is the great mass of mankind 
about their soul's salvation, while death is sweeping 
on with his chilling blast, freezing up the blood of 
generations, catching their spirits, unblessed with any 
preparations of peace, quenching hope and binding 
destiny forever! Their graves are embalmed with 
the tears of friends and with garlands — their tombs 
adorned; but their spirits — where are they? How oft 
hath this town, where I now speak these lamentations 
over a thoughtless age, been filled and emptied of its 
people since first it reared its head? How time has 
swept over it, year after year, with its consuming 
waves, swallowing up every living thing, and bearing 
it away unto the shores of eternity ! It is as true of 
nations and cities as it is of individuals. Where are 
the Jews and their beloved city? Their glory hath 
vanished like the mist from the mountain; the besom 
of destruction hath swept away their honors; the ob- 
livious pall hath long since covered them; obscurity 
hath spread her dark mantle upon the land of Pales- 
tine, and the carved crescent of the Moslem waves 
over the crumbling fragments of Jewish grandeur. 
But why is this? Because, notwithstanding all that 
had been done for this peculiar people, they would 
neither love nor obey, nor worship God according to 
his requirements. Thus Jerusalem, fallen from her 
once exalted station, and weltering in the blood of her 
children, raises her warning voice against all succeed- 
ing nations. She speaks from the records of her 



A SERMON. 183 

fathers, from the broken tribes of her wandering sons ; 
and not her voice alone proclaims the emptiness of 
human glory, the catastrophe of human wickedness. 
Other kingdoms have been broken; other cities have 
been buried; other nations have been extirpated. 
Where are Troj, Babylon, Athens, Thebes, Persepolis, 
and Palmyra? Their ruins are sepulchered with the 
ashes of their founders. 

"All! there, in desolation cold, 
The desert serpent dwells alone, 
Where grass o'ergrows each moldering stone, 
And stones themselves, to ruin grown, 
Are gray, and deathless ruin hold." 

Palmyra, the seat of proud kings, the emporium of 
science, the envy of her neighbors, the wonder of the 
world, is no more ! Her stately ruins may form a pic- 
ture, her fame may point a moral, but her power and 
her glory have long passed away ; faded is her beauty, 
withered her strength, and humbled her pride. The 
ruins of these cities may be better expressed in the 
language of an eminent writer. He says: 

'^Babylon and Nineveh, with their cloud-capt towers 
and gorgeous palaces, their massive gates and impene- 
trable walls, have crumbled to dust. The shrines of 
Palmyra o'erspread the Syrian wastes. The fishers 
dry their nets on the ruins of Tyre and Sidon. Car- 
thage ! See her prostrate columns and her ruined 
arches ; the lizard basking on her altar-stones ; the tall 
grass waving over her wrecks of glory. The lone 
widow of the seven hills, where desolation has laid 



184 A SERMON. 

his blighting hand, sits clothed in sackcloth amidst her 
ruined palaces; her helm is shattered, her spear is 
in rust, remembrance hath no charm to burst her 
fetters, the past hath no spell to nerve the arm of her 
children to strike for freedom yet again ; the light that 
beamed upon her former glory is quenched forever. 
Greece, whose genius reigned omnipotent with his golden 
wand; whose science and art raised temples of beauty 
and enchantment — alas, the change! The spirit that 
trod to earth the Persian plume sleeps with the mighty 
dead; the loud peals of triumph that rang through her 
borders when the banners of her foemen were trailing 
in the dust no longer echo in her valleys." 

It was here that I became acquainted with this noble 
youth. His unassuming manners and unaffected sim- 
plicity rendered him the charm and idol of his ac- 
quaintances. As a neighboring youth, I esteemed; as 
a school companion, I loved. His deeds of virtue and 
acts of kindness are engraven upon my heart and reg- 
istered upon the long living annals of eternity. In 
March, 1831, he obtained license to practice law; his 
mind was stored with the treasures of science, and his 
perception of truth was unparalleled. He was pro- 
vided with a compass and chart when he embarked 
upon the tempestuous ocean of life. He spread his 
sails in the breezes of heaven, and set sail for the 
harbor of fame. For days and months the sky was 
clear: the ocean was calm and unruffled; his streamers 



A SERMON. 185 

gayly kissed the breezes of prosperity, lie saw fame 
and immortality reflected from the mirrored waves. 
But alas, the ocean began to yawn, and the chilfing 
winds began to blow. Behold him now, driven out on 
the mountain surges of a dark and frightful sea. One 
hour he was in the bosom of peace and security, and 
the next torn from friends and home, to roam unshel- 
tered on the pathless deeps of the unexplored ocean 
of death. In January 18, 1831, he left Mt. Sterling 
for the Mississippi. He reached the spot of destina- 
tion, and immediately commenced the practice of law. 
He was considered to be one of the brightest gems 
that sparkled in the diadem of that country. It 
flashed conviction on the criminal, and scattered the 
clouds of disgrace from the innocent, and poured the 
sunshine of justice around him. His fame as a coun- 
selor at law^ floats upon the breezes of the great 
valley. Little did he think, wlien he left the parental 
smiles of home, that he would meet the frowns of 
death. What must have been the thoughts of his dear 
parents? Did they never expect to meet him again 
in this unfriendly world? Were these the thoughts 
of the dear mother concerning the idol of her heart? 
When she gave him the parting hand, her heart 
throbbed with the hope of meeting her dear Fred- 
erick. Month after month rolls aw^ay, but he does 
not return. Alas, the soul-harrowing news arrives — 
Frederick Trimble is no more. He died without a 
groan — he is in heaven. 



186 MASONIC ADDRESS. 



MASONIC ADDRESS. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, and Brethren of the Order : 

We have not assembled to celebrate tbe migbty 
deeds and glorious victories of Alexander, wbo shook 
the earth, and caused a conquered world to bow down 
and do him reverence. We have not met to eulogize 
Napoleon, vath whom crowns were toys, and kings 
humble vassals, and at whose word ten thousand swords 
leaped from their scabbards and flashed in the sun- 
light of his eye. We have not met to sing the praises 
of the brave Leonidas and his three hundred soldiers 
resisting the millions that followed the standard of 
Xerxes ; neither have we met to laud the name of our 
own beloved Washington, upon whose brow angelic 
millions have dropped the wreath of immortality. It 
is true that patriots have toiled, and in their country's 
cause stood nobly, and their deeds, as they deserve, 
receive proud recompense. We give their names in 
charge to the sweet lyre. The historic muse, proud 
of her treasure, marches with it down to the latest 
times ; and sculpture, in her turn, gives bond, in stone 
and ever-during brass, to guard them and immortalize 
her trust. 

We have met to speak of the origin, the objects, the 



MASONIC ADDRESS. 187 

principles, the benefits of Masonry, and likewise to 
answer some objections, and give tbe names of illus- 
trious individuals who were members of the masonic 
fraternity, and conclude with the perpetuity and tri- 
umphs of our benevolent cause. 

I think Masonry in its present form should not be 
dated further back than the building of the Temple of 
Solomon. The foundation of this magnificent structure 
was laid in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, which 
was the second after David's death, 480 after Exodus 
and 1011 before Christ. In the performance of that 
great work, 150,000 laborers were employed, 3,300 
overseers, and three grand masters were engaged in 
its execution; the wisdom of Solomon, the strong sup- 
port of Hiram, king of Tyre, and the beautifying 
wisdom of Hiram, the widow's son, were united. If 
we roll back the billowy tide of time, and unroll the 
moldering records of past ages, and rummage among 
the musty tomes of buried centuries, and hold com- 
munion with the melancholy ghosts of dead renown — 
if we spread the chart of time before us, and stand 
amid the dateless tombs of past centuries, and cause 
the dynasties of all times to pass in review before us — 
we can trace the principles of our order. Primeval 
Masonry left its foot-prints upon the valley of the 
Nile, and saw Egypt in the pride of her glory, upon 
whose altar the lamp of knowledge first burned, with 
her thousand temples, cities, and oracles. It saw her 
in her darkest days of ignorance, idolatry, and super- 



188 MASONIC ADDRESS. 

stition, and witnessed the downfall of her Thebes and 
her Memphis, her Sphynx and oracle of Ammon, 
It left its record upon her aspiring pyramids, which 
have stood for three thousand years, surrounded by 
the grandeur and gloom of the desert, as trophies of 
a7't and monuments of misguided ambition. It waved 
its banner over the plains of India, the hills of Chal- 
dea, and the mountains of Judea. It listened to the 
thunder of Demosthenes, and the matchless eloquence 
of Cicero, and heard the first tones of Homer's harp, 
and the last strains of sweet music which, like dying 
echoes, lingered upon classic shores. It saw Rome in 
her queenly pride, ruling the world from her throne of 
gem and gold. It saw her proud eagle stricken to 
the earth by the vultures of the northern forest. It 
saw the starry throne of the Saracen crumble into 
dust, and it will live until the archangel shall stand, 
with one foot upon the sea and the other upon the 
land, lifting up its hand to heaven, swearing by Him 
that liveth forever that time shall be no longer. 

The object of Masonry must be familiar to all of its 
members, and perhaps to some others. It is my duty 
to devote a few moments to the consideration of this 
point. The object is to accomplish what man can do 
for the relief of human misery, suffering, and want. 
The institution of Masonry is spread far and wide 
over the habitable globe, and inculcates the highest 
and soundest principles of virtue and morality, and 
at the same time possesses a universal language, 



MASONIC ADDRESS. 189 

understood by all its members, consisting of signs, 
grips, tokens, and pass-words, which serve as a safe- 
guard to the institution, and preventive of fraud and 
imposition. 

The principles of Masonry are the most expanded 
benevolence, and the lessons it inculcates are in ac- 
cordance with the maxims upon which it is based — 
faith, hope, and charity. An institution that has for its 
object the advancement of human happiness or human 
intellect, and the amelioration of the condition of 
mankind, or to lessen the ills and miseries incident on 
human life, and which draws closer the ties of human 
sympathy, and strengthens the bond of brotherhood 
between man and man, is not only worthy of appro- 
bation, but of the warmest support and admiration. 
That Masonry is such an institution, no one who has 
taken the trouble to investigate its principles and 
operations will attempt to deny. 

Upon the three colossal pillars of faith, hope, and 
charity rests the structure of Masonry. Around these 
cluster our brightest hopes and fondest anticipations. 
Here the venerated patriarchs of our ancient and hon- 
orable institution in by-gone days have worshiped, 
and with unstained hands have transmitted down, 
through the lapse of time, the sublime mysteries, the 
sacred rites, the solemn and eternal truths unfolded 
to those who enter within the arcana of our temple, 
and bow as sincere applicants to the inner vail of our 

altars. 

17 



190 MASONIC ADDRESS. 

The benefits of Masonry claim a portion of our time. 
One benefit to be derived from this institution is the 
training it gives to those who may ever be called to 
take part in public life. All the business of the lodge- 
room is conducted strictly upon parliamentary princi- 
ples, and the man who has gone through a regular 
gradation of offices will be prepared to preside over 
almost any public body, with honor to himself, and to 
the satisfaction of those who called him to the post. 
Another benefit to be derived from Masonry arises 
from its universality. If you should travel in a for- 
eign country, and be taken sick, you will find the same 
brotherhood, bound by the same ties, ready to admin- 
ister to your wants, or attend you in distress, or if 
you should be robbed and left penniless, your wants 
will all be supplied. Another benefit to be derived 
from Masonry : if you are a trader you may be saved 
from swindlers. Another benefit : are you a minister 
of the gospel, you may be more useful. Another 
benefit: if you are slandered, your brethren will de- 
fend you. Again, your life may be preserved. Again, 
Masonry laid the foundation of the Reformation, and 
struck the first blow for American liberty. Again, 
the law of God was preserved in the ark, which lay 
amid the ruins and rubbish of the temple for four hun- 
dred and seventy years. Another benefit: it throws 
the brightest shield of protection over female char- 
acter. The last, though not least, benefit : the orphan 
is educated, the widow's wants supplied, religion incul- 



MASONIC ADDRESS. 191 

cated, and the wants of suifering humanity satisfied, 
sorrow's tears wiped away, and the mourner's sky 
arched with a rainbow of hope. 

I will now answer some of the objections to Ma- 
sonry. One objection is to its secrets. Is secrecy a 
crime ? Every individual has secrets ; every family in 
this town have secrets ; nature has secrets ; the Bible 
has secrets; literary societies have their secrets; the 
Congress of these United States has its secrets — it 
closes its doors and sits for weeks, for months, con- 
cocting measures of vital importance to more than 
seventeen millions of freemen, and should any member 
of that body dare to reveal its operation he would sub- 
ject himself to the severest censure, if not expulsion. 
The God of heaven has secrets — secret things belong 
to God. Masonry has secrets ; what are they — shall I 
reveal them to you ? No ! but I will tell you in what 
they consist. They consist in the mode of initiation — 
signs, tokens, gripes, and pass-words, by which we may 
recognize each other, in the dark as well as the light. 
These are the links and bands which bind us together, 
and prevent fraud and imposition, and insure the per- 
petuity of our institution. Another objection : there 
are so many bad men belonging to the fraternity. If 
this objection proves any thing, it proves too much, 
and every logician knows that that which proves too 
much proves nothing. There were apostate angels in 
heaven; a Judas in the church; an Arnold in the 
American army ; and bad members in every society. 



192 MASONIC ADDRESS. 

Again : I object to cliurcli members becoming Masons. 
Hale, unequaled in jurisprudence ; Locke, wbo anato- 
mized the human mind; Newton, who spanned the 
heavens, embraced the universe, and soared to untrod- 
den heights, where angels bashful looked ; and Wash- 
ington, who fledged the wings of our American eagle 
which has soared against the sun, bearing upon its 
head the bright constellation which adorns the blue 
arch of the bending heavens; these were Christians 
and Masons. Again, says a lady, I am opposed to my 
husband joining the Masons, because he will possess a 
secret that he can not reveal to me. It is natural and 
proper that the wife should be the participant of her 
husband's joys and sorrows, and the confidant of his 
secrets, yet there are many things a man should not 
reveal to his wife. The lawyer that would communi- 
cate the secret of his client to his wife w^ould violate 
the oath of his ofiice, or the physician that would de- 
tail all the particulars of his patients to his wife would 
be unworthy the confidence of the community. It 
would be highly improper for a clergyman to make 
known confessions made to him. The priest who 
would reveal the secrets of the confessional would be 
unrobed; and the Mason that would make known the 
secrets of the fraternity to his wife would violate his 
sacred honor, and prove himself unworthy the trust 
imposed in him. If he were to put his wife in the 
possession of the signs, tokens, gripes, and pass- 
words, they would be of no advantage to her, for she 



MASONIC ADDRESS. 193 

would not be received as a free and accepted Mason. 
Again, says another, I believe the Masons have 
something to do with the devil in their lodges. No 
such good luck to the opposers of Masonry. The 
Bible tells us that he is going up and down the earth, 
seeking whom he may devour ; so the opposers of Ma- 
sonry had better look out, for the devil is not caged 
up in our lodge-rooms. Permit me to say that the 
devil will never get into our lodges as long as I am a 
member; for he does not love me, neither do I love 
him; consequently he knows that I would black-ball 
him as long as there is a black ball in the ballot-box. 
Brother Tyler, it is your business to see that the lodge 
is well tiled, and if old Nick should attempt to enter 
without a human skin on him, bathe your sword from 
point to hilt in his heart's blood, and you shall have 
the thanks of the fraternity, the prayers of the min- 
istry, the blessings of the world and the rest of man- 
kind. Says another, I believe that Masonry leads 
to infidelity. This objection would make a modest 
monkey smile and a decent devil blush. I pronounce 
this as grand a falsehood as ever hung upon the lips 
of sin and hell. Look at the ministers of every creed, 
clime, and color (except the mother of harlots), who 
are members of the Masonic fraternity. Look at the 
all-seeing Uye that scans creation from her rhyme to 
her rhythm ; look at this precious volume — the great 
light of Masonry — a book of prophecies and of mira- 
cles, splendid in pro??izse and sublime in prospect, and. 



194 MASONIC ADDRESS. 

like a glorious sunset, gathering its concentrated rays 
over time and eternity. The Bible, not only the light 
of Masonry, but of the church, the alps of the moral 
universe, from whose summit the water of life gushes 
and rolls down its sides in a thousand golden rivers to 
water the church at its base, resting in the hope and 
the smiles of immortality. 

Look at our literary institutions, with their heaven- 
piercing spires, kissed by the first beams of the rising 
and the last rays of the setting sun. Look at our 
banner of blue and purple, waving from a thousand 
temples, and flinging its ample folds over mourning 
widows and weeping orphans. Look at the redeemed 
millions upon the thrones of eternity, sweeping the 
strings of ten thousand harps of living melody in 
praise of the God of the Bible, the Christian, and the 
Mason. Angels now hush their harps, while faith 
sounds her timbrel, and hope points to the fruition 
of heaven, and love encircles the great brotherhood 
of mankind. 

Dare the objector now say that Masonry leads to 
infidelity? Again: I object to Masonry on account 
of the murder of Morgan. Who knows that Masons 
murdered Morgan ? Nero set fire to Rome and 
charged it upon the Christians; the anti-masons may 
have murdered Morgan and charged it upon the 
Masons. At the time of the abduction of Morgan, 
there were two great political parties in the State of 
New York, and Masonry and anti-masonry were the 



MASONIC ADDRESS. 195 

two great Jiohhies which they rode. Grant, for the 
sake of argument, that some political Masons in the 
State of New York were engaged in the murder of 
Morgan, does it follow that the Masons of Kentucky 
and other states in this Union imbrued their hands in 
his blood? John Calvin had Michael Servetus burned 
for opinion's sake, does it follow that all Calvinists 
were engaged in the murderous act of burning him? 
The Catholics, on St. Bartholomew's day, had fifty 
thousand Protestants put to death, are the Catholics of 
the present day responsible for that felonious act ? It 
is true that Morgan revealed many things pertaining 
to Masonry, but to have revealed the zvhole he must 
have possessed a miraculous memory. Tom Paine has 
written some things which are true about the Bible, 
but I would as soon expect the whole truth in relation 
to the Bible from his book, falsely called the Age of 
Reason, as the whole truth of Masonry from Morgan's 
exposition. Who would expect to gather the mellow 
grape beneath the icy pole, or to see smiles and roses 
blending upon the cold cheek of death? Or who will 
go to that tissue of falsehoods, or that vulgar libel, 
called Morgan's Revelation, for the truth in relation to 
our time-honored fraternity. Procul, procul este, 
frofani ! 

The last objection we will notice on this occasion is, 
Why are not ladies admitted into our lodges? Who 
objects because ladies are not permitted to vote, to 
legislate, to command armies and fleets? Ladies, 



196 MASONIC ADDRESS. 

home is your pedestal of beauty; you make it an Eden 
of love, and are yourselves the best representatives 
of unfallen Eve. You are the presiding divinity of 
the domestic circle, and your smile has thrown a rain- 
bow of light around the heart of the sailor boy amid 
the storms of the ocean, and has nerved the arm of 
the warrior amid the thunders of cannon and the 
groans of the dying. 

Permit me to say, it is not for the want of mind to 
comprehend the sublime mysteries, and integrity of 
heart to keep the secrets of our fraternity; if we were 
to admit you into our lodges, the labor of the craft 
would instantly cease, for we could do nothing but 
wonder, admire, and love you. But I forbear; the 
objections to our order have been so often met and 
refuted that they have become threadbare ; it has had 
enemies and opposers in every age. The blood of her 
members has flowed freely with the blood of martyred 
saints; but the light of truth is rising upon the 
world with increasing brightness and splendor, and the 
gloomy night of opposition is passing away; and soon 
the boding owls, croaking ravens, and other birds of 
evil omen will cease to flap their wings over our 
ancient temple of beauty and wisdom, and seek their 
dark and murky hiding-places. Our institution will 
rise still higher, like the strong-winged eagle, wakened 
by the beams of the morning sun, and mounting aloft 
to seek the solitude of trackless skies; while the rep- 
tiles around her nest shrink away, and in the glory of 



MASONIC ADDRESS. 197 

her future triumphs will be lost the sorrows and per- 
secutions of the past. Yes, then like the eagle, 

"Proudly careering liis course of joy; 
Firm in his own mountain vigor relying; 
Breasting the dark storm, the red bolt defying; 
His wing on the wind, his eye on the sun. 
He swerves not a hair, but bears onward right on. 
Mason, may the eagle's flight ever be thine — 
Onward and upward, and true to the line." 

Who can object to the Masonic fraternity, when 
such a host of illustrious individuals as the following 
have been members: Sir Matthew Hale, supreme 
judge in the court of England, whom, as a man of 
equity and skill in jurisprudence, England never knew 
a greater — ^he was a Mason. John Locke, whose burn- 
ing strains of eloquence have enraptured and elec- 
trified thousands — ^he was a Mason. Benjamin Frank- 
lin, the philosopher, who drew the lightnings of heaven 
down to his feet, and in his crucible analyzed the 
thunder-bolt, by which he saved the lives and property 
of millions — he was a Mason. Sir Isaac Newton, that 
colossal pillar of mental grandeur, who discovered the 
law of gravitation; named and numbered the stars; 
grasped the poles and spanned the heavens; soared 
amid wheeling worlds and burning suns, carrying his 
line and rule from the foundation to the cupola of the 
temple of creation, taking his stand upon the highest 
pinnacle of the third heavens, and looking out upon 
the grand panorama of the universe, while suns and 
systems rolled in bannered effulgence to his eye ; then 



198 MASONIC ADDRESS. 

descending from that lofty altitude upon trembling 
pinionSj perches himself upon the tree of Calvary, and 
sings redeeming love with the Marys at the foot of 
the cross — he was a Mason. Lafayette, the generous 
stranger,_the twin-brother of Washington in the cause 
of freedom and the rights of man; he who periled his 
fortune, liberty, and life in behalf of our oppressed 
country; the man in whose eye a throne was con- 
temptible, and kings and tyrants synonymous terms; 
whose creed was the sovereignty of the people, and 
whose ambition would have led him to be Washington 
if he had not been Lafayette — he was a Mason. 
Washington, a name that raises in the mind of man 
the idea of whatever is great, whatever is grand, what- 
ever is illustrious in human nature ; a name that forms 
a column of glory as high as heaven, and will stand to 
future ages an eternal monument wreathed with the 
laurels of fame, at whose base the present and future 
generations of freemen will bow, and around whose 
summit the spirits of heroic millions will tune their 
harps — 

"He burst the fetters of the land, 

He taught us to be free; 
He raised the dignity of man. 

And bade a nation be" — 

Washington was a Mason. General Jackson, the 
statesman, the patriot, the hero of New Orleans ; he 
who was successful in every measure and triumphant 
in every battle, illustrious in the field and the cabinet, 



MASONIC ADDRESS. 199 

and whose sword leaped from its scabbard to receive 
the homage of victory — Jackson was a Mason. Henry 
Clay, the dutiful son, the devoted husband, the indul- 
gent father, the kind neighbor, the humble farmer, the 
peaceful citizen, an American statesman, the orator of 
the world; whose fame is like the lightning which 
shines from one end of the heavens to the other; who 
stood upon a mountain of intellect and shook the 
world with the thunder of his thought — 

"As some tall cliflf that rears its awful form, 
Swelling from the vale, and midway leaves the storm; 
Though round his brow the rolling clouds may spread, 
Eternal sunshine rests upon its head" — 

Henry Clay was a Mason. Fifty-three of the signers 
of the Declaration of Independence were Masons. All 
of the major-generals of our revolution, with the ex- 
ception of the traitor Arnold, were Masons, and had 
he been a Mason he would not have been a traitor. 

In conclusion, permit me to say that the institution 
of Masonry will live when the names of its persecu- 
tors are covered with the curses of ten thousand 
mourning widows and weeping orphans. It has lived 
to celebrate the funeral of kings and dynasties that 
plotted its destruction, and would have blotted out 
its memorial from the map of time. It lives while 
other societies of this world — empires, kingdoms, and 
commonwealths — being of imperfect constitution, have 
been of less permanent duration. Where is Jerusalem, 
and the beautiful Temple of Solomon, which rose in 



200 MASONIC ADDRESS. 

splendor upon Mount Moriali, and drank in the glories 
of the rising and setting sun? Where is Palmyra, the 
seat of the proud kings, the emporium of science, the 
envy of her neighbors, the wonder of the world? She 
is no more. Her stately ruins may form a picture, 
her fame may point a moral, hut her power and glory 
have long since passed away. Faded is her beauty, 
withered is her strength, and humbled her pride. 
Babylon and Nineveh, with their cloud-capt towers, 
their gorgeous palaces, their massy gates and impene- 
trable walls, have crumbled to dust. The shrines of 
Palmyra overspread the Syrian waste. The fishers 
dry their nets upon the ruins of Tyre and Sidon. 
Carthage! See her prostrate columns, her ruined 
arches ; the lizard basking upon her altar-stones ; and 
the tall grass of summer waves over her wrecks of 
glory. Rome ! city of thrones and kingdoms, at whose 
will kings were made and laid aside their crowns. 
Where now are her countless legions? The moldering 
grasp of time has been laid upon her temples. The 
lone widow of seven hills, where desolation has laid his 
blighting hands, sits in sackcloth amid ruined palaces ; 
her helm is shattered; her spear is in the rust; re- 
membrance hath no charm to burst the fetters; the 
past hath no charm to nerve the arm of her children 
to strike for freedom yet again ; the light that beamed 
upon her former glory is quenched forever. Greece, 
whose genius reigned omnipotent with his golden 
wand, whose science and art raised temples of beauty 



MASONIC ADDRESS. 201 

and encliantment — alas, the cliange ! The spirit that 
trod to the earth the Persian plume sleeps with the 
mighty dead; the loud peals of triumph that rang 
through her borders when the banners of her foemen 
w^ere trailing in the dust no longer echo in her val- 
leys. The light that poured its flood upon Idea's 
height still shines, but it beams upon the sepulchers 
of the dead — upon chains and ruins. They who died 
on Thermopylae's gory peak — slaves tread upon their 
ashes. Italy! deep darkness broods upon her vine- 
clad hills; a moonless night of ignorance and gloom 
has settled upon her borders ; the glory of her diadem 
is no more; her proud coronal is no longer studded 
with gems ; silence and fear inhabit her orange bow- 
ers; no garlands upon her altars, no songs upon her 
hills ; her surpassing beauty is blasted as with a hoar 
frost; the chill of religious despotism has frozen her 
faculties; and the night winds, sighing through her 
borders, breathe a requiem over her departed great- 
ness. The institution of Masonry still lives. It 
stands like the rock which rears its head in the ocean, 
against which the waves have surged, and around 
which the winds have warred and the zigzag light- 
nings have played, but it lifts its top to dispute empire 
with the clouds, and battle with the storms again. 

Brethren of the fraternity, let us go forth on our 
mission of love and good-will to men. Let us visit 
the sick, bury the dead, educate the orphan, relieve 
the distressed, console the widowed heart, and thereby 



202 MASONIC ADDRESS. 

cause joy and gladness to gush forth from every vil- 
lage and hamlet in the land. Let us put on our robes 
of benevolence, and, as angels of mercy, deal merci- 
fully with our fellow-man; then, when our summons 
comes to go hence, and we shuffle off this mortal coil, 
we will die amid the prayers, tears, and blessings of 
thousands who have been relieved by our charity, and 
will become worthy members in that temple not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens, where the Most 
Worthy Master of the universe presides. 



EULOGY ON GEN. ANDREW JACKSON. 203 



EULOGY ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. 

[Delivered at Stamping Ground, Ky., July 24, 1843.] 

If my pencil were dipped in a living fountain of 
light, I would fail to draw the full likeness of the 
illustrious hero, patriot, statesman, and Christian. 
Andrew Jackson was a hero. He entered the service 
of his country at the age of fourteen; he was taken 
prisoner and treated with fiend-like barbarity. He was 
commanded by a British officer to perform the task of 
a menial, which he proudly and positively refused. 
The stall-fed tyrant was so enraged at the conduct 
of the young prisoner that he drew his sword to sever 
his head from his body. The blow that was aimed at 
his life was arrested by his gallant arm, which after- 
ward sustained the star-gemmed banner of American 
liberty. At the age of fifteen he was an orphan. His 
beloved father bid adieu to his country and its oppres- 
sors, and was enjoying the tranquillity of the tomb; 
his valiant brothers were in their gory graves, and the 
spirit of his sainted mother was reposing in the bosom 
of her God. He was alone, having no friends but his 
sword and the little patrimony of his father. But, 
like the proud eagle, caged by a tyrant, dejected with 



204 EULOGY ON GEN. ANDREW JACKSON. 

oppression, pining under the loss of relations, debili- 
tated by disease, he lifts his majestic head above the 
clouds, and gains confidence and strength by battling 
with the storms. He pauses for a moment in his tov/- 
ering flight amid the conventions of his adopted state 
and the congress of the nation, aiding the one and the 
other with his counsel, and turning the very dust be- 
neath his feet into the gold of wisdom. 

In 1812, when the red sons of the forest rekindled 
the fires of war, and the work of butchery and death 
was going on, w^e see our hero subduing the hostilities 
of the Indians and riding buoyantly upon the waves 
of glory, with victory perched upon his standard and 
unfading laurels encircling his brow. His eventful 
life is thickly studded with heroic deeds and brilliant 
achievements. The name of Andrew Jackson and the 
ever-memorable eighth of January are identified, and 
will live in the hearts of his countrymen while the sun 
opens the day, or the moon leads on the night, and the 
earth produces the golden harvest. 

The hero of New Orleans was triumphant in every 
battle and successful in every measure. At the call 
of his country his sword leaped from its scabbard, and 
victory paid it homage. While the cloud of battle was 
lowering and the cannon belching fire and thunder, he 
stood amid the clash of arms like old ocean's rock 
amid the strife of elements, guiding upon the point of 
his sword the destructive thunder-bolt into the hearts 
of his country's enemies. He was instrumental in 



EULOGY ON GEN. ANDREW JACKSON. 205 

touching the red torch to the dreadful engine of death, 
whose deep voice taught the invincibles of Wellington 
and the presumptuous Packenham a lesson which they 
comprehended while falling in the conflict and flying 
before the thunder of our artillery. 'T was then the 
shining car of freedom rose upon the clouds that rolled 
up from the field of carnage, amid the plaudits of 
millions and the shouts of victory. "Beauty and 
booty" was the motto inscribed upon the banner of 
the haughty Packenham. He intended to crush the 
flower of chivalry and the virgin beauties of New 
Orleans beneath the chariot wheels of death and the 
insatiable fangs of lust. General Jackson threw him- 
self into Thermopylae, and contended with the impious 
invader for his country — the matrons and daughters 
of the Crescent City. He said the whole British army 
should pass over his body before the virgin purity of 
a single lady should be stained or dishonored. He 
marshaled his army to battle and to victory, and when 
the pealing fife, the rattling drum, the roaring cannon, 
the groans of the wounded and dying ceased, and three 
thousand of the enemy, together with their brave com- 
mander, had fallen beneath a shower of leaden and 
iron hail, which Jackson and his army poured upon 
them, our American eagle clapped his glad wings and 
soared against the sun, bearing on his lofty head the 
diadem of our nation's glory, and in his talons the 
fiery thunder-bolts of war, and in his proud beak the 

olive-branch of peace; and as he ascended into the 

18 



206 EULOGY ON GEN. ANDREW JACKSON. 

heavens, upon bold and tireless pinions, lie screamed — 
Jackson and America forever! 

Andrew Jackson was a patriot of the purest char- 
acter and highest order; every act of his life is demon- 
strative of the fact. The tendrils of his soul entwined 
the altar of freedom and the pillars that support the 
temple of our glory. His prayer was that the sun of 
our nation might never set, nor time nor revolutions 
shake nor crumble the temple of liberty, but stand 
forever firm and imperishable as the pillars of heaven. 
He lived to see the nation at peace with the entire 
world, and his countrymen enjoying the elective fran- 
chise; the lives and property of seventeen millions 
safe; splendid cities rise upon the ruins of the wilder- 
ness, teeming with wealth; commerce riding before the 
winds and rolling upon the waves of every sea; our 
arts reaching a giant's manhood, and the common- 
wealth of letters in the noon of its glory; our majestic 
rivers rolling their united floods to the ocean, bearing 
upon their bosoms the commerce and the proud navy 
of the nation, and our beautiful steamers plowing the 
waves of our mighty rivers and the wide, tossing seas ; 
our rail-cars whirling through the land, and intelli- 
gence flying with electrical rapidity; the press free; 
the tongue of our holy religion unfettered; the war- 
whoop of the savage exchanged for the songs of Zion ; 
and the angel of mercy sweeping the harp of living 
melody. Our immortal chieftain lived to see twenty- 
eight stars gem the proud coronal of his country, and 



EULOGY ON GEN. ANDllEAV JACKSON. 207 

as he descended into the grave another star arose 
amid that brilliant galaxy which adorns our political 
heavens. Is there a name for that too high and 
beauteous star? The voice of Kentucky's favorite 
son, the American Cicero, comes pealing from Ash- 
land — the voice from the tomb of Jackson, and the 
united voice of seventeen millions of freemen — give 
that star the name of Texas. 

General Jackson was among the first of American 
statesmen — take him in the field or the cabinet, he 
has not been equaled since the days of the immortal 
Washington. Had he lived at the time that proud 
Rome was empress of the seas and the metropolis 
of the world — when the barbarian hordes beat like 
a cataract at the gates of this Niohe of nations — he 
might have been the Csesar to roll the tide of war, 
or the godlike Brutus of the senate. 

At the call of his country he left his own loved and 
beautiful Hermitage to fill the highest ofiice in the 
gift of the people. He planted himself by the Con- 
stitution like the cherub by the tree of life, and told 
demagogues and wily sycophants not to intermeddle 
with that hallowed instrument which is sealed with the 
richest blood that ever flowed. 

When the storm of the North and the South rode 
upon rough pinions and wailed through the capital, 
threatening dissolution to the Union, with one hand he 
grasped the Constitution and with the other the totter- 
ing pillars of the Government — the storm-cloud rolled 



208 EULOGY ON GEN. ANDREW JACKSON. 

from the heavens, and the angel of peace spread his 
golden wings over the nation and sung, "How good 
and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in 
unity!" 

General Andrew Jackson was a Christian. This 
was the crowning glory of Iiis life. Full of years and 
covered with the laurels of a thousand battles, civil 
and political, on the eighth of June he died, breathing 
his soul in prayer to God. The capital is wrapped in 
mourning and the nation in tears. When Washington 
died, Jackson was left; but Jackson is dead and the 
nation has no Washington. He descended from the 
highest pinnacle of fame to sit and sing redeeming 
love. His name will descend upon the stream of time, 
encircled with a bright halo of glory, to the latest pos- 
terity, and unborn millions with trumpet tongue will 
shout his praise. We have garlands for his grave and 
unfading laurels for his imperishable fame. Peace he 
to his illustrious shade! 

Go, ye patriots and Christians, to Mount Vernon 
and the Hermitage, and weep at the tomb of your 
Washington and the grave of your Jackson, those 
twin-brothers in the cause of freedom and the rights 
of man. There may they rest until the voice of the 
archangel and the trump of God shall break the seal 
and rend the sepulcher ; then may they leap into life 
and immortality, and forever glow in the image of the 
world's Redeemer. 




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